Ahead of the U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to China, senator Bernie Sanders has demanded that two countries agree to ban “superintelligence” and work towards safer Artificial Intelligence systems, invoking Reagan-Gorbachev nuclear arms control as precedent.
Referring to Superintelligence as an “artificial mind smarter than any human”, Sanders said President Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping should allow free flow of technical information between top scientists of the two countries to prepare “AI redlines” about dangerous behavior, ensure AI models are safe and effective and ban superintelligence.
“At the height of the cold war, Reagan and Gorbachev found a way to negotiate nuclear arms control. The existential risk posed by AI demands nothing less from Trump and XI,” wrote Sanders in a post on X. Superintelligence refers to a theoretical form of AI where the machine surpasses human intelligence and capabilities across all domains.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 11, 2026
Recently, Sanders organized a panel discussion on the “existential threat of AI” which was attended by AI scientists and researchers from both U.S. and China.
“When I convened leading American and Chinese scientists at the U.S. Capitol, they warned that the world is woefully unprepared for the threats posed by rapid and uncontrolled development of AI,” said Sanders.
Sanders’ statement comes amid reports that U.S. and China are keen to talk on AI risks during the upcoming visit of Trump to China. According to White House officials, representatives of more than a dozen tech and business companies including NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon among others, are accompanying Trump during his visit to China.
Also Read: “Summoning an Alien Species”: David Krueger on Why Superintelligence Could End Us All
