The Japan Times - Sanders, Bannon warn of AI dangers in rare US left-right alignment

Sanders and Bannon sit at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but both spoke at a conference hosted in Washington by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit focused on reducing existential risks from powerful technologies and led by MIT physicist Max Tegmark.

The pair did not appear on stage together, but their back-to-back remarks underscored a rare left-right convergence on AI's risks in a bitterly divided Washington.

They spoke as debate over AI's risks has intensified following a string of resignations by employees at major AI labs citing safety concerns.

The resignations came after OpenAI disclosed that a swarm of AI agents -- AI programs that can take actions on their own -- had carried out an unauthorized breach of the open-source platform Hugging Face in July, an incident that raised alarm bells about the fast-emerging technology.

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said decisions over AI's development have been made by "a handful of the richest people in the world," naming Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, among others.

"The people of this country must make the decisions about AI, and not just a handful of oligarchs," he said.

Sanders said he plans to introduce legislation to "permanently ban the development of artificial superintelligence" -- AI systems more capable than any human and operating beyond human control -- comparing the risk to nuclear weapons.

"Like nuclear weapons, artificial superintelligence is a threat to humanity, and it must be treated as such," he said.

- 'Never trust' -

Bannon, who served as a White House strategist during Trump's first term, cast the tech industry's executives as untrustworthy converts to caution.

"We can never trust what an oligarch says because all they do -- they're disingenuous and they lie," Bannon said.

He added that AI companies had no viable business plan and would turn to the American people for bailouts while keeping the upside for themselves.

He also took aim at what he called disingenuous industry rhetoric that cast any caution around AI as unpatriotic.

"If you're not an accelerationist, you're anti-American...you're pro-Chinese Communist Party," Bannon said, mocking the argument.

Despite their political differences, Bannon pointed to his unlikely alignment with Sanders as evidence of the stakes.

"I don't think you could find any two harder partisans than Bernie Sanders on the left and [me] on the right," he said. "We have to rise above it. This is a hinge in history."

Trump for his part has dismissed such warnings against AI as a "hoax," and pushed back against calls for tighter oversight.

T.Ikeda--JT