Senator Elizabeth Warren (D‑Massachusetts) has become the latest prominent Democrat to endorse a temporary pause on advanced artificial intelligence development, her office told Axios.
What Warren is proposing
Warren will call on Wednesday for an immediate pause in the development of advanced AI while lawmakers and regulators establish systems to protect people. She stopped short of supporting a ban on superintelligence, marking a departure from Senator Bernie Sanders (I‑Vermont), who is hosting a roundtable on the issue.
Warren said, "Congress must urgently pass legislation to put stronger guardrails in place before we have a cyberattack, economic crisis, or national security disaster facilitated by AI."
Sanders’s proposal and penalties
Bernie Sanders’s plan seeks not only a pause but also a ban on superintelligence and includes potential criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison for violations — a level of punishment its authors compare to penalties for illegally developing nuclear weapons.
No unified progressive stance on AI regulation
Within the progressive movement, as with other political groups, there is no single agreed position on the detailed contours of AI regulation. Warren and Sanders have also floated different economic approaches: Warren has proposed taxing AI companies, while Sanders wants the government to take equity stakes in them.
Industry positions and legal questions
CEOs of frontier AI labs have coalesced around calls to pace or slow the development of frontier AI and to pursue international coordination. Warren described the industry’s push to "pace the frontier" as insufficient, arguing that elected officials — not AI CEOs — should decide the technology’s future. She called suggestions to weaken antitrust protections to confront AI risks "transparently self‑serving."
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for an antitrust exemption to ease coordination on pacing efforts. Former antitrust government officials, however, argue such an exemption is unnecessary because current law does not prevent AI companies from coordinating to prevent harm or from sharing legitimate cybersecurity information.
Broader political context
More nationally prominent Democrats are weighing in on slowing AI development while the Trump administration has rejected the idea. Kamala Harris this week endorsed slowing down and urged President Trump to pursue a treaty with China. Former President Barack Obama also described slowing development as a useful first step.
Bottom line
A growing number of Democrats are calling to slow the development of advanced AI, but there is little agreement on what specific government actions should follow. Warren supports an immediate pause but does not back Sanders’s ban on superintelligence or the hefty criminal penalties he proposes.
