The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar, seeks to permanently prohibit AI that exceeds human cognitive capabilities or could disempower humanity. The legislation would immediately pause the training and deployment of "advanced AI," defined as systems trained with at least 10^25 operations, until a new cabinet-level Department of Artificial Intelligence establishes safety rules. This agency would be authorized to force flagged models offline or destroy confirmed superintelligence, while violators could face up to 20 years in prison and entities would be subject to a "corporate death penalty" including asset and intellectual property forfeiture.

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna have signed on to the proposal, which is described as the most aggressive AI bill currently in Congress. Sanders cited comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regarding shutting down labs that produce dangerous models to justify the restrictions. Critics, including commentator Jordan Schachtel, argue the bill is a power grab that would crush innovation and protect incumbents like OpenAI and Anthropic, while some supporters characterize the move as necessary to prevent human extinction.