Members of Congress are beginning to grapple with how to regulate artificial intelligence as voices within the tech industry increasingly warn the technology poses major dangers, even as they pursue rapid AI advancements. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has staked out an aggressive position for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: Make it stop. HuffPost interviewed Sanders for a story on Wednesday about how lawmakers are generally unprepared to confront the potentially apocalyptic threat of AI. An edited transcript of our conversation follows:The AI news is getting scary lately, and it seems like you are deliberately trying to get out in front of it among lawmakers. You have the boldest proposal — to pause advanced AI development until a regulator can set safety rules. Why are your colleagues hesitating?I think there are a couple of factors. We’re living under a very corrupt campaign finance system. The AI industry is owned by the wealthiest people in the world, they are prepared this election to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure that Congress does not do the right thing in protecting the American people. So I think every member of Congress has got to stand up and say, “Hey, if I am prepared to demand serious regulation of the industry. How many tens of millions of dollars are going to be spent against me?” So that’s No. 1. No. 2, I think there has not been up until very recently an awareness about the extraordinary dangers posed by an AI that, as it becomes more intelligent than human beings, can become independent of human control, with possibly cataclysmic results, catastrophic results. There have been a number of scientists who have been warning about that for years, but I think the American people are catching on. I think, as you may have noticed, Jacob Coxon from Anthropic, a researcher there, just resigned, and I mean this is like a lightning bolt, just going all over the world. He has hundreds of millions of people who have viewed his tweet, and I think it speaks to the anxiety that the American people have, that people have all over the world, about this exploding technology, which is going to transform the world, and in some ways, in a very negative way.“How in God’s name can you keep going forward in the direction of superintelligence when you don’t know what that means?”- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)Do you think people will catch on to opposing AI itself the way they now oppose data centers? Six months ago, [Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I introduced legislation calling for a moratorium on data center construction, and we were thought crazy, radical. We were laughed at, “Ho ho ho.” Well, as you well know, all over the country now you have communities that have stood up and said, “No, we don’t want data centers.” You have now Republican governors speaking out very strongly against it, as well as many Democrats. In New York state, the governor, in fact, issued an executive order for a ban on data center construction. So, I think what’s going on is that politicians now, on one hand, they look at the moneyed interests, and they say, “Oh my God! If I speak out on this issue, I’m going to have millions of dollars from AI, the AI companies coming against me in 30 seconds.” On the other hand, they’re going home [to their congressional districts] and they’re saying they’re hearing their constituents say, “You know what? You better damn well do something. We’re worried about this for a number of reasons.”Do you think the moratorium position will become a default position for Democratic candidates? I hope. I just read that [U.S. Senate candidate] Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan is calling for a pause, and I think you’re going to see more and more elected officials and candidates doing the same as we are seeing with the moratorium on data centers. It’s hard to go home to your constituents and say, “Yeah, we just heard from leading researchers, and in fact executives at AI companies, who tell us they are building a plane. They’re building a technology that they cannot control, and they don’t know where it’s going. But no problem. We’ll just keep doing it.” I think that that does not make sense to the average American. How in God’s name can you keep going forward in the direction of superintelligence when you don’t know what that means? So I think the idea of a pause is going to generate more and more interest and more and more support.Are Democratic leaders in Congress, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), catching on to this?Talk to the Democratic leaders. All I can tell you is that we will be hosting a meeting on next Wednesday, the 16th, with some of the leading experts in the world, who will explain to members behind closed doors their concerns and fears about what a runaway AI technology could mean for humanity.