- Bernie Sanders warns that artificial intelligence could destroy people, or worse, the planet
- This moratorium would prevent any future data center construction or expansion
- Most technology leaders have warned of job losses or other consequences
US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D-NY) have shared details of the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act (2026), which argues that data center construction nationwide should be halted for both new sites and upgrades.
The purpose of the bill is to allow the US government’s oversight of artificial intelligence to catch up by slowing development and preventing Big Tech from affecting society, the economy or democracy.
Sanders and the AOC worry that the mass deployment of artificial intelligence has already led to job losses, citing many other concerns, so the pause on data centers would allow the U.S. to more carefully regulate the technology before it gets out of hand.
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Bernie Sanders wants to slow down data centers to protect American citizens
AI has already been linked to layoffs, with the two warning of mass unemployment, but they also cite concerns over surveillance and mass surveillance, deepfakes, misinformation and environmental impacts associated with high water and electricity consumption.
A summary announcement details how many of the world’s richest and/or most influential people have already acknowledged some of the above concerns, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, Microsoft AI’s Mustafa Suleyman, Ford Or’s Jim Larry and Jim L more.
The moratorium will ban both new AI data center construction and upgrades to existing facilities until certain conditions are met that will lift the ban. These conditions focus on privacy, civil rights, the economy, the environment and local communities.
“This bill will stop a global race to see which country is the first to eliminate hundreds of millions of jobs, or the first to build an AI that destroys the planet,” the two summarize.
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