Sanders, Bannon share stage urging Congress to act on AI curbs

House slated to vote Tuesday on Ratepayer Protection Act

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, and Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser, will share a stage at the all-day “Pro-Human Assembly” in Washington on Tuesday alongside a diverse set of speakers, according to NPR. The event aims to convince Congress to work faster to curb the impact of AI. NPR described the gathering as “a rare pairing of a progressive leader and a MAGA voice” and a sign of how AI is upending political alliances.

The event comes at a time when concerns over the spread of data centers, the growing influence of AI and warnings from AI insiders caused leaders at Anthropic and OpenAI to call for a slowdown in AI development to keep the technology under human control, NPR reported. At the same time, lawmakers have been urging House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to pass AI safeguards.

Trump pushed back on the industry warnings. “We’re leading China in AI, we’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “And we can put guardrails, we can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up.”

Johnson told CNN over the weekend that he supports some guardrails for AI but argued that companies bear primary responsibility for safety — and that congressional action risks falling behind China. “We cannot put a moratorium on this because China will overlap us, and that’s the challenge,” Johnson said. “If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American.”

The House is slated to vote on legislation as early as Tuesday addressing one slice of the issue — the proliferation of data centers. The bill, known as the Ratepayer Protection Act, is designed to shield Americans from spikes in energy costs tied to the construction of data centers, according to NPR.

The assembly is organized by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group that issued 33 principles in March to guide its pro-human movement. Those principles include that humans must remain in charge of AI, people should retain agency and liberty, and AI companies should be held accountable.

“By centering our common humanity, we maintain a space grounded in trust and collaborative problem-solving to chart a pro-human future with AI,” the organizers wrote at the end of the event’s schedule and speakers’ list, according to NPR.

The event has also attracted Hollywood actors Ashley Judd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who have advocated for stronger AI controls, as well as religious leaders from various denominations and child safety advocates — including parents of children who died by suicide after talking to AI chatbots, NPR reported.