Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Senator Bernie Sanders staked out opposite ends of US AI regulation on Thursday. Zuckerberg called a national regulator flawed, while Sanders moved to ban advanced AI.

Those two positions now bracket the fight in Washington. One camp wants industry to police itself while the other wants the government to stop building.

Zuckerberg Says AI Regulation Would Hand China the Lead

Trump called Zuckerberg the week of August 17, POLITICO reported Thursday. Zuckerberg opposed a proposed watchdog modeled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

FINRA polices US brokerages and is funded by the firms it oversees. The AI version would test frontier models for risk before release. Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis popularized the idea in July.

Zuckerberg had already argued that superintelligence should reach everyone rather than a few labs.

“Any policy that slows American model releases … could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead,” Zuckerberg said in August.

Sanders Sets the Bar at Human Level

Sanders and Representative Greg Casar announced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act on Thursday. It would outlaw systems that match or exceed human cognitive performance.

That bar sits lower than the name suggests. Matching human performance would trigger the ban.

The bill would also freeze advanced AI work until a new federal regulator writes rules. Violators face up to 20 years in prison.

Sanders has pressed Congress on AI before without moving legislation.

“The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs,” Sanders said in a statement.

Zuckerberg did not kill the proposal. Officials are still weighing the FINRA-style body against a voluntary industry group. Adviser David Sacks favors the lighter option and has dismissed AI safety fears as storytelling.

Both camps now accept some kind of referee. The fight is over whether anyone stops building while it gets built.

Source: BeInCrypto