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The facts
On September 15, 2026, X user @Polymarket posted that Bernie Sanders urged Trump to negotiate an AI superintelligence ban with China’s Xi. This aligns with reporting from The Guardian, which stated Sanders spoke at a Washington event on the same date, urging Trump to negotiate with Xi at their upcoming AI summit for a treaty pausing advanced AI development and banning superintelligence. Livemint and Moneycontrol also reported on September 13, 2026, that Sanders called for Trump and Xi to negotiate a treaty at their AI summit to pause advanced AI and ban superintelligent AI, describing it as an AI mind smarter than any human operating independently. Responsible Statecraft noted Sanders has urged US-China cooperation on AI regulation to prevent loss of control over the technology, including developing AI redlines and progress toward a treaty banning superintelligence. Polymarket's event page indicates an 8% chance that the US and China will agree to pace the AI frontier in 2026.
Our take
In the grand, slow-motion car crash of American politics, a new and profoundly beautiful piece of debris has been flung from the wreckage. Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who has spent decades yelling about billionaires into what often feels like a polite but indifferent void, has now turned his attention to the impending silicon apocalypse. His latest masterstroke? Urging Donald Trump - a man whose primary diplomatic strategy involves insulting people on social media and whose grasp of technology famously extends to coveting a ‘cyber’ that is ‘very, very powerful’ - to sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping and hammer out a treaty. The goal? To ban the development of AI superintelligence and pause all that pesky ‘advanced AI’ nonsense. It’s like asking a pair of toddlers who are currently smashing each other with toy trucks to please draft a binding accord on the ethical use of Legos.
The reported facts are a symphony of absurd hope. Sanders made this plea at a Washington event, suggesting that the upcoming AI summit between Trump and Xi is the perfect venue for this negotiation. He wants them to agree to a treaty that would ban ‘superintelligent AI,’ which is described, in the kind of chillingly simple terms that make you want to drink heavily, as ‘an AI mind smarter than any human operating independently.’ So, not just a really good chess bot, but the thing that will eventually decide we are inefficient biological clutter and turn us into paperclips or a fine paste. Sanders, through other outlets, has pushed for US-China cooperation to set ‘AI redlines’ and work toward this superintelligence ban to prevent ‘loss of control’ over the technology. This is the diplomatic equivalent of seeing two rival meth labs operating at full tilt next to a kindergarten and suggesting the cooks get together to agree on a voluntary cap on explosive yield.
The crowning jewel of this whole shit-show, however, is the data point from the prediction market Polymarket. Their event page, where people bet real money on the likelihood of global events, currently puts the chance that the US and China will ‘agree to pace the AI frontier in 2026’ at a blistering, confidence-inspiring 8%. Eight percent. That’s not a probability; that’s a margin of error. It’s the statistical equivalent of a shrug so profound it dislocates both shoulders. It means the collective wisdom of gamblers and nerds with cryptocurrency looks at the idea of the world’s two most powerful and antagonistic nations, currently locked in a trade war, a tech war, and a constant dick-measuring contest over the South China Sea, voluntarily tying their own hands in the race for the most powerful technology ever conceived, and says, ‘Yeah, maybe, but probably not.’
So let’s picture this summit. Trump, who once suggested injecting disinfectant to cure a virus, is across the table from Xi, the authoritarian leader of a surveillance state that uses AI for social credit scores and ethnic repression. Sanders’s fantasy is that they will put aside rampant nationalism, immense economic and military incentives, and profound mutual distrust to sign a piece of paper saying, ‘We pinky-swear not to build God.’ It’s a beautiful, naïve, and utterly hopeless idea. It’s asking two competing corporations to stop researching the cure for cancer because it might be too profitable and dangerous. Bernie is essentially playing the role of the concerned parent who walks into the garage where his kids are building a homemade nuclear reactor out of old smoke detectors and lithium batteries and says, ‘Now, boys, have you considered a safety protocol?’ The only appropriate response is a pat on the head and a slow, cautious back-away toward the exit. The takeaway is stark: the train has left the station, the tracks lead off a cliff, and the best our political class can muster is a kindly old man waving a ‘Please Slow Down’ sign as it rockets past him, sparks flying, on its way to the great unknown. We are so, so fucked.
