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Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as many Americans are beginning to understand, artificial intelligence and robotics is in the process of transforming the world.

The truth is that we are at the beginning of the most profound technological revolution in world history, a revolution which will bring unimaginable changes to our society.

This is a technological revolution which will impact our economy with massive job displacement. It will threaten our democratic institutions; it will impact our emotional well-being; it will impact how we educate and raise our kids; and it will impact the nature of warfare.

Further, and frighteningly, some very knowledgeable people fear that what was once seen as science fiction could soon become a reality, and that is that superintelligent AI could become smarter than humans, could become independent of human control, and pose an existential threat to the human race.

In other words, human beings could actually lose control over the planet. AI and robotics are creating the most sweeping technological revolution in the history of humanity. And the scale, scope, and speed of that change is unprecedented.

According to Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's DeepMind, the AI revolution will be 10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution and 10 times faster.

In other words, this technological revolution will have 100 times the impact that the Industrial Revolution had. And the Industrial Revolution had a major impact on the lives of people.

As we speak, AI companies are making their models smarter and smarter and smarter.

According to the Model Evaluation & Threat Research group, the length of tasks--the length of tasks--AI can complete is doubling roughly every 7 months--doubling.

And it is not just what AI companies are saying. Take a look at what they are doing. This year, four--one, two, three, four--four AI companies are spending some $670 billion to build out data centers. As a percentage of GDP, that is 10 times greater than what we as a nation spend each year on the Moon landing.

Bottom line: We are looking at the most significant investment in human history, which is bringing about the most rapid societal transformation in human history.

Let me be very clear. Congress is way, way behind where it should be in understanding the nature of this revolution or understanding its impacts. We have to catch up, and, frankly, we don't have a lot of time.

In my view, here are just a few questions that Members of Congress and the American people should be asking. Question No. 1: Who is pushing the AI and robotics revolution? Who is going to benefit from this revolution, and who is going to get hurt by this revolution?

The answer will not surprise the American people. At a time in American history when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of our Nation, the AI revolution is being pushed by the very wealthiest people in our country, including people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Peter Thiel.

Now, why is that? Ask yourself a very simple question: Why are these multibillionaires investing hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and robotics? Is it because they want to improve the lives of the 60 percent of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck, Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, housing, and education? Is that their motive? Is that why they are developing AI and robotics--because they are deeply concerned about the well-being of ordinary Americans? Maybe, but I don't think so.

I think the answer is obvious: These multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because those investments will increase their wealth and power--and power--exponentially. In other words, the richest and most powerful people on Earth will become even richer and even more powerful.

But what happens to the average American? What happens to the working people in our country, the vast majority of our people, during this revolutionary upheaval? Well, let's hear from the owners and the leaders of this revolution in their own words--not just me; let's hear what they have to say.

Elon Musk, who has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and robotics, recently said that ``AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional.'' Elon Musk, the wealthiest guy on Earth, investing hundreds of billions of dollars, says that ``AI and robots will replace all jobs.'' Maybe we should take him seriously.

Bill Gates, who has also made huge investments in these technologies, founder of Microsoft, predicted that humans ``won't be needed for most things.'' Humans ``won't be needed for most things.''

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, said that most white- collar work--listen to this; this is the CEO of Microsoft AI--most white-collar work ``will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.'' That is the CEO of Microsoft AI.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote that recent breakthroughs had made it clear that we are only ``a few years'' away from the point when ``AI is better than humans at essentially everything.''

Jeff Bezos, the fifth richest person in the world, has reportedly pushed his staff for years to think big and envision what it would take for Amazon to fully automate its operations, run it without workers. Bezos plans to replace at least 600,000 workers at Amazon with robots.

Their goal, the goal of the AI leaders, is not simply to replace specific jobs; their goal is to replace workers.

According to Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, AI ``isn't a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans.''

According to OpenAI's charter--listen to this--its mission--this is what OpenAI say its wants to do--is to build ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.''

That is what the leaders of the AI industry are saying. Are they exaggerating? May they be wrong about this or that detail? Perhaps. But I think we should listen carefully to what they are saying.

As the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I released a well-researched report finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs in America over the next decade, including 47 percent of truckdrivers. Right now, we are seeing in major cities cars that are self-driving. I was in one recently--Waymo in San Francisco. We are going to see more and more of them. There are large trucks on the road right now in Texas that are self-driving. There is no reason to believe that we are not going to see more and more of them all over the country.

Our report talks about the loss of 64 percent of jobs that accountants have right now and 89 percent of fast food workers, people who are behind the counter, among many other occupations. We are already starting to see the impact right now, the impact of AI on workers.

Researchers at Stanford released a paper in November called ``Canaries in the Coal Mine?'' That study found that there has already been a 16-percent relative decline in employment for younger workers in jobs exposed to AI, like computer programming and customer service. In other words, the AI revolution is already making it harder for young college graduates to find decent jobs.

If OpenAI is successful in building ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work,'' I have a very simple question that I think is on the minds of millions of working- class Americans, and that is, what happens to the workers who have lost their jobs? That is a pretty simple question. How will they be able to find new jobs if there are no new jobs to find? It is one thing to talk about telling a truckdriver who loses his job to go into computer programming, but what happens if that computer programming job no longer exists? If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? How will they feed their families or pay for housing or healthcare?

I have to be honest and say that I am not aware that anyone in the U.S. Congress, which is supposed to be representing the American people, is even talking about this issue in a serious way.

Further, I am concerned not only about the economic impact of AI, which will be enormously profound, I am talking about the impact of AI on our humanity and how we relate to each other.

Work, in many instances, gives our lives meaning and purpose. We all, whether we are doctors or scientists or janitors or truckdrivers or snowplow operators, feel a basic need to serve our community, to be useful, to be productive members of society. In other words, work is what gives us meaning, and it is also how we connect to each other. We have our family. We have our friends. But we also work in an environment where we get to know each other and relate to each other. Well, what happens when millions of people lose their jobs and their source of connection to other human beings?

I am also deeply concerned about the impact that AI will have on the emotional well-being of our kids--in fact, all people but especially the children.

According to a recent poll by Common Sense Media, 72 percent of U.S. teenagers say they have used AI for companionship and more than half do so regularly. What does it mean for young people to form friendships with AI and become increasingly isolated from other human beings? Does anyone in our country think that the past 20 years of social media have been good for children's mental health and cognitive capabilities? Does anyone think we should now entrust these very same companies with even more power over our children's well-being and development?

This is an issue that needs an enormous amount of discussion that we have not begun in a serious way.

Let me also say that I am deeply concerned about the existential threat posed by AI. I recently met with researchers in California who told me that the AI companies are building this plane--this AI plane, if you like--as they are flying it. They are building it on the tail, and nobody knows what the end result will look like. In other words, they are feverishly going ahead, and every day, we read about another breakthrough, but they do not know what the end result will be.

Now, I know this may sound like science fiction, but many experts, including the godfather of AI, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, have told me that there is a real chance that human beings could lose control to AI. Now, why is that? AI is moving so quickly that experts who make AI acknowledge--they acknowledge--that they do not fully understand how AI makes decisions.

Now, I am not a computer scientist--in fact, I failed physics in college, if truth be told--but here is what experts have told me: AI is trained on a massive amount of data and calculations. The scale of the data is almost beyond comprehension. Training the most advanced AI models is expected to soon require an octillion calculations--that is 1 followed by 27 zeroes; that is a lot of zeroes--or the estimated total number of grains of sand on planet Earth. Think about that for a moment. That is the amount of data in calculations involved in creating a most advanced AI.

We are, at this moment, creating an extraordinarily complex and powerful technology that is not fully understood even by the people who are building it. How insane is that and how dangerous is that?

AI already does weird stuff. It can lie. It can cheat. It can even blackmail. Left unchecked, what will AI be able to do in a decade from now, when it will be far, far, far smarter than it is today?

I am also concerned about the impact of AI on our environment. AI requires zillions of calculations. Those calculations require huge data centers, which, in turn, require a massive amount of electricity and water.

For example, Meta is building a data center, in Louisiana, the size of Manhattan--size of Manhattan--that will use as much electricity as 1.2 million homes. One data center the size of Manhattan will use as much electricity as over a million homes.

Mr. President, these are just some of the questions that we should be asking. And yet, instead of a global conversation about these serious issues, we are letting a handful of billionaires race forward to develop AI for power and for profit.

Let me be clear. In my view, we should not be racing with China or anyone else to see who is the first to eliminate millions of jobs or the first to build an AI that destroys the planet. That is not a race anyone should win.

What we need is a serious conversation in our community, in our country, and around the world about the role of AI and how we make it beneficial to all humanity. AI can do a lot of good things, but it has to be beneficial to all humanity and not just the billionaires who currently own it. In other words, we need to take a deep breath.

For all of these reasons, I will soon be introducing legislation to ban the development of new AI data centers. We need to slow down the development of AI to give democracy a chance to catch up. A moratorium will give us the chance to figure out how to make sure AI benefits workers, not just a handful of billionaires. A moratorium will give us time to figure out how to ensure AI is safe and effective and prevent dangerous outcomes. A moratorium will give us time to figure out how to make sure AI does not harm our environment or jack up the cost of electricity.

Bottom line: A moratorium will give the American people the time to determine how AI impacts their lives. It will give the global community the time to work together to address the risks posed by AI.

This is an enormously important issue. The time is long overdue for Congress to begin the serious discussion that it deserves.

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