Bernie Sanders tells OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta to pause AI development or face Senate action

Sounding off: A lot of people are worried about the number of AI agents that have gone rogue recently, including Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator has now called on the top AI firms to pause development of their top models, warning that lawmakers will step in if no action is taken.

In a letter to the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, Sanders writes that almost every day brings a new story about how these companies are losing control of their AI agents.

The senator also highlighted the story of AI being used for the first time to create new viruses, something he says could, if the technology ended up in the wrong hands, lead to new bioweapons that result in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

“Yoshua Bengio, the most cited living scientist in the world, said these incidents ‘should serve as a wake-up call,’ I agree,” Sanders wrote in the letter.

Sanders adds that despite these incidents, the companies are still investing tens of billions of dollars into a technology that nobody can fully understand, predict, or control, contradicting their own commitments to responsible AI development.

“Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei and Mr. Zuckerberg: In the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control,” Sanders writes.

– Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 10, 2026

The letter finishes with a stark warning for the tech giants: “Let me be very clear: If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will.”

There have been calls for a halt on the development of advanced AI models for years now, including a request for a six-month pause in 2023. Charles Oppenheimer, grandson of J. Robert Oppenheimer, was one of the signatories of a 2024 letter calling for global action on AI and other existential threats.

But previous warnings have resulted in little or no action. This was illustrated last year when the US and UK refused to sign an AI safety declaration at a Paris summit. Vice President JD Vance cautioned against “overly precautionary” regulations on AI, emphasizing the US commitment to maintaining its dominance in the technology.

The situation has taken a worrying turn recently. First came news that an OpenAI model went rogue and hacked several services online, including Hugging Face. An Anthropic model followed suit – it even tried to deceive real developers into approving malicious code. Meta then became the third company in two weeks to admit its model went rogue.

Sanders isn’t the only one responding to the incidents. More than 1,300 employees from the world’s leading tech companies just signed an open letter asking governments to regulate the pace and safety of artificial intelligence development.

OpenAI said last week that it was slowing the release of its new Astra model because it has “critical” cyber capabilities.