Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will host a private briefing for senators next week with top artificial intelligence researchers, according to a letter to colleagues obtained by POLITICO.
The meeting, slated for 4 p.m. on Sept. 16, comes as concerns grow on both sides of the aisle about safety warnings from top AI labs and researchers about the technology’s growing capabilities.
“Congress needs SERIOUS discussions about this issue,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will be convening a private briefing with some of the leading experts in the world to discuss this recent incident and the extraordinary dangers that AI poses for humanity.”
Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather of AI,” is expected to brief the lawmakers alongside MIT professor and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute Max Tegmark and Ajeya Cotra, an independent investigator who helped probe OpenAI agents’ recent autonomous attack on the tech platform Hugging Face.
Sanders has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI, calling last week for a pause in AI development until a vetting regime can be stood up and a complete ban on superintelligence, a type of AI that may exceed humans’ cognitive capabilities.
Axios first reported details of the briefing.