Progressives steer Democratic Party toward heavy regulation of AI

Progressive Democrats are jockeying to shape the Democratic Party’s approach to artificial intelligence, pushing for heavy restrictions on the rapidly developing industry.The hard-left wing of the Democratic Party has been sharply critical of the AI industry’s rapid, largely unregulated growth, warning that the risks of the technology advancing faster than developers can keep pace with could be detrimental to humanity.The issue is likely to be a defining factor in the 2028 presidential race, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) urging potential 2028 candidates to stake out positions on the issue, and telling reporters there is a “sense of urgency” to take action on regulating AI. “They’ve got to talk about it in ’28, and we have to act immediately when Congress returns,” Sanders said Wednesday.To that end, Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) introduced legislation this week to ban artificial superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a regulatory body is established. Superintelligent AI is defined as software considered to be “smarter-than-human.”The legislation would also establish a new Cabinet-level “Department of Artificial Intelligence” and impose criminal penalties on any person or entity that violates the pauses and guardrails outlined in the bill. Entities could face a “corporate death penalty,” while individuals could face up to 20 years in prison.Ten Democrats have signed on to the bill as co-sponsors, including progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), who are considered to be possible 2028 contenders.Khanna, who is the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, has been vocal in his opposition to unregulated AI growth, having called for a binding treaty with China and international inspections of AI systems in addition to a global pause on AI that can train itself and a global pause on superintelligence in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.The political debate surrounding placing guardrails on AI intensified after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and warned that AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade” and that Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives.”His resignation was followed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei writing an open letter earlier this month calling for an international slowdown on AI frontier model development. Progressive Democrats’ stricter approach to the AI industry could pull the party to the left on the issue. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has called for Congress to “immediately” address AI regulation to “slowing things down to protect the health, the safety and the well-being of the American people.”But the Democratic leader has not yet endorsed a specific plan. Jeffries’s office did not return a request for comment on whether he supports the Sanders-Casar plan.Jeffries told reporters last week that he expects the Democrat-only AI commission he convened to begin rolling out recommendations soon.Progressive political positions on how to handle the industry contrasts with Republican leadership’s support for the development of AI and pushback on using a heavy hand against the industry. Johnson has rejected calls to act quickly on regulating AI models, saying the House will not take “stupid knee-jerk reaction prescriptions” toward the industry. Still, the expected meeting underscores the pressure Republicans are under to regulate the industry ahead of the November midterm elections. The speaker has warned that placing too many regulations on AI risks hampering the U.S.’s national security and giving China an opening to take the lead in the AI development race.