'Slow this thing down': Sanders warns US has no clue about speed and scale of coming AI revolution

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Source: The Guardian

Fri 20 Feb 2026 23.26 EST
Last modified on Sat 21 Feb 2026 03.00 EST


Bernie Sanders has warned that Congress and the American public have “not a clue” about the scale and speed of the coming AI revolution, pressing for urgent policy action to “slow this thing down” as tech companies race to build ever-more powerful systems.

Speaking at Stanford University on Friday alongside congressman Ro Khanna after a series of meetings with industry leaders in California, Sanders was blunt about what he called the “most dangerous moment in the modern history of this country”. “The Congress and the American people are very unprepared for the tsunami that is coming,” he said.

Khanna, a progressive Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, shared Sanders’s concerns, warning that the country was experiencing a “new gilded age” run by tech billionaires who believe “they would have been heroic conquerors in a different era”. “That’s just not my observation,” Khanna said. “That’s what they tell me.”

Khanna and Sanders declined to specify which tech executives they met with during the senator’s visit to California, but the congressman said it was “senior leaders” at the “most prominent tech companies”. “I think it was important for both Senator Sanders to hear from tech leaders and tech leaders to hear from Senator Sanders, who represents and understands the concerns of so many working-class Americans,” Khanna said in an interview after the event.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/ai-revolution-bernie-sanders-warning