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Sanders' Superintelligence Ban, Trump-Xi Talks & the Cost War Contradiction
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Senator Sanders introduces a bill to permanently ban superintelligence while Anthropic and OpenAI slash prices days after calling for slower AI development — the contradiction is impossible to ignore. From Illinois's new AI Cabinet to Thursday's Trump-Xi summit, this episode maps the fault lines shaping AI policy right now.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Senate staff are banned from using the advanced AI tools that the Senate is currently trying to regulate. That's not a metaphor.
On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar introduced legislation to permanently ban superintelligence, pause advanced AI development, and create a federal Department of AI with formal approval requirements. The bill is aggressive by any measure.
A day earlier, Illinois Governor Pritzker signed an executive order creating a formal AI Cabinet. The cabinet is tasked with developing state regulations, analyzing AI risks to infrastructure, and delivering policy recommendations through twenty twenty-seven.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Bessent spent the weekend negotiating a U.S.-China AI dialogue framework. Talks begin Thursday, covering cyber incidents, safety frameworks, and chip export controls.
That strategy is also being tested from the inside. Anthropic released Claude Opus five point five on Tuesday with a forty percent cost reduction and thirty percent faster output than its predecessor.
Which brings it back to where we started. Lawmakers are being asked to regulate technology they can't use, built by companies whose incentives don't always align with their stated positions, in a geopolitical race where slowing down feels like losing.
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