Michigan Senate candidate El-Sayed proposes pausing frontier SI development and creating an agency with the power to halt it
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
A demand to pause frontier SI has entered the campaign platform of a candidate for the US Senate; it is a proposal, not an adopted decision.
In his new program for bringing SI under control, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the US Senate, proposes freezing the training and release of the most powerful SI systems until safety rules and independent certification by scientists exist (new data centers would also wait), banning superintelligence and recursive self-improvement of SI, introducing a "kill switch" — the ability to slow, suspend or shut down powerful systems, with cloud operators required to cut access on a lawful order — and creating an independent Cabinet-level agency with the power to inspect labs, block releases and order a pause. The program builds on a bill by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar to ban superintelligence. Republican Mike Rogers, according to El-Sayed, calls the concerns "fearmongering"; Rogers's position on the substance was not found in the sources checked.
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