ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 55 (Tuesday, March 24, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 24, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1584-S1588] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are at the beginning of the most profound technological revolution in world history, a revolution which will bring unimaginable changes to every aspect of our society. Artificial intelligence and robotics will impact our economy, our political lives, our privacy, our emotional well-being, our environment, and even our survival--the survival of humanity on this planet. The scale, scope, and speed of this change will be unprecedented. That is not the view of Bernie Sanders. That is the view of some of the most knowledgeable people in the world who have developed AI, who study AI. According to Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's DeepMind--the head of Google's DeepMind--the AI revolution will be 10 times bigger than the industrial revolution and 10 times faster. In other words, the AI revolution will have 100 times the impact that the industrial revolution had. People left the farms. They went to work in factories. People left factories. They went to work in offices. According to the head of Google's DeepMind, [[Page S1585]] this revolution will be 100 times more impactful. Mr. President, it is not just what the leaders of the AI companies are saying. Take a look at what they are doing. This year, four--four-- AI companies are spending almost $700 billion to build out data centers across this country. As a percentage of GDP, that is 10 times greater than what we spent each year on Moon landings, going to the Moon. Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI has gotten far too little discussion here in Congress. I fear very much that while the American people are deeply concerned about the economic, the spiritual, the political impact of AI, Congress is totally unprepared to respond to the existential changes that are taking place. We are way, way, way behind where the American people are in terms of their concerns. Here are, in my view, a few questions, just a few, that Members of Congress and the American people should be asking. Question No. 1, a rather obvious question: Who is pushing the AI and robotics revolution? Ordinary people going up and saying: Hey, we got to automate factories. We got to do that. Who is pushing it? Well, I think we all know what the answer is. The answer is Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellison. These are some of the wealthiest people in the world, and they are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and robotics. Okay. Fair enough. Why are they doing it? Why are these multibillionaires investing huge sums of money into these new technologies? Do you think it is because they are staying up nights and they are saying: My goodness, 60 percent of the American people are struggling economically? They are living paycheck to paycheck. Can't afford groceries. They can't afford housing. They can't afford healthcare. And that is why we are going to push these technologies, to improve life for ordinary Americans. Well, maybe, but I doubt that very much. I think the answer is obvious. These multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because those investments will increase their wealth and power exponentially. They will make massive profits. In other words, the richest and most powerful people on Earth will become even richer and more powerful. And another question I think that we obviously should be asking is: What will the impacts of AI and robotics be on our society? How is it going to impact us? Pretty obvious question. In my view, and according to the people who have studied this issue extensively, including Nobel Prize winners, AI and robotics will bring about the most rapid societal transformation in human history. Let me repeat. AI and robotics will bring about the most rapid societal transformation in human history. Among other things, AI and robotics will transform our economy with massive job displacement. It will impact our emotional well-being and how we relate to each other as human beings. It will lead to a massive invasion of privacy. It will threaten our democratic institutions, and it will bring severe harm to our environment. Further and frighteningly, some very knowledgeable people fear that what was once seen as science fiction could soon become a reality, and that is superintelligent AI could become smarter than humans, could become independent of human control, and pose an existential threat to the human race. In other words, this is what they used to make science fiction movies about. But some of the most knowledgeable people on Earth, including people who have helped develop this technology, actually believe human beings could lose control over the planet to artificial intelligence. Question No. 4: What happens to working people, to ordinary Americans during this revolutionary upheaval? Well, don't take my word for it. I am not an expert on it. Let's hear what the leaders in the industry are saying in their own words, not Bernie Sanders. This is what the people who have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the industry are saying. Elon Musk, who has made massive investments in AI and robotics, recently said: AI and robots will replace all jobs. Now, is Mr. Musk exaggerating? Is he wrong? I don't know. But I think you might want to take a listen to one of the most powerful people on Earth, who is investing very heavily in these technologies. Bill Gates, another multibillionaire investing heavily in AI, he predicted that: [H]umans won't be needed for most things. Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI--the CEO of Microsoft AI-- said most white-collar work: [W]ill be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months. Not 12 to 18 years, 12 to 18 months. That is the CEO of Microsoft AI. Somebody might be a little concerned about that here in Congress. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Bezos, the fourth richest man alive, who is worth over $200 billion, is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over America. OK? One of the richest guys in the world is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over the country. His goal: Replace the millions of workers who are employed in these plants with robots. Maybe somebody here might be raising some concerns about the fact that we are on the beginning of the end of manufacturing jobs in the United States. And for Mr. Bezos, this is not just an idle threat. According to The New York Times, Mr. Bezos plans to fully automate Amazon operations. He owns Amazon. He wants to fully automate Amazon operations, beginning by replacing at least 600,000 workers with robots. So this is a guy who has a track record. That is what he is doing right now; and he wants to expand that vision all across the country, basically wipe out manufacturing jobs in America and get rid of millions of workers. Why does he want to do it? Well, the answer is fairly obvious: Because AI and robots will cost employers far less than human labor. Robots work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Robots do not need sick days or healthcare. They don't take Christmas or New Year's Day off. They will end up costing employers a fraction of what human labor costs. As Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, has said: AI isn't a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans. And according to Open AI's charter, its charter, its mission is to build: [H]ighly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work. In other words, what these guys are working toward is creating an AI which can do virtually any job better than a human being can do. What are the impacts of that? Well, you know, we might want to have a discussion about that here in the Congress. As the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I released a number of months ago a well-researched report, finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs in America over the next decade--100 million jobs-- including 47 percent of truck drivers, 64 percent of accountants, and 89 percent of fast-food workers, among many other occupations. There are towns and cities in America we are already seeing a lot of driverless vehicles. In Texas now, you have 18-wheelers going down the road, and nobody is driving those trucks. And everything being equal, that will be the future unless we begin to start talking about it and figure out how we make AI robotics work for workers, not just the richest people on Earth. We are already--not next year, not 10 years from now--we are already starting to see the impact of AI on the working class in this country. Researchers at Stanford released a paper in November called ``Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence'' that found that there has already been a 16- percent relative decline in employment for younger workers in jobs exposed to AI like computer programming and customer service. Further, 42 percent of new college graduates are underemployed. At the same time, for every new job posting, there are now, on average, 242 job applicants. In other words, for our [[Page S1586]] young people, getting a job is going to be increasingly difficult. If OpenAI is successful in building what they want to build--``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work''--I have a very simple question that we might be discussing here on the floor of the Senate: What happens to those workers? How will they be able to find new jobs if there are no jobs to find? How are they going to feed their families? How are they going to buy healthcare? How are they going