Bernie Sanders teams up with Steve Bannon for 'pro-human' AI event

Maria Villarroel Tue, September 15, 2026 at 6:12 AM UTC

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Sen. Bernie Sanders during his Fighting Oligarchy Tour in Pennsylvania (Image: Nathan Morris/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former White House adviser-turned podcaster Steve Bannon will join forces at an event on Tuesday to push for human-controlled artificial intelligence.

Sanders, a democratic socialist, and Bannon, a far-right firebrand, will join unlikely forces on Tuesday for a "pro-human" approach to AI in Washington. However, they will not be sharing a stage.

Other members of Congress with ideologically opposed views will also join them at the event, including Republican hard-line fiscal hawk Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and Democratic Progressive Caucus chair Rep. Greg Casar of Texas.

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Other public figures, such as actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ashley Judd, will also be speaking at the event.

The conference is organized by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group that authored the Pro-Human AI Declaration, which calls for greater human involvement in artificial intelligence and holds companies accountable for their role in its rapid evolution.

Steve Bannon speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025 in Phoenix (Image: AP)

"The Oligarchs are finally being forced to admit they've lied from the beginning about the dangers of acceleration with zero guardrails - they've put the nation and mankind in jeopardy," Bannon said in a statement.

The upcoming event comes on the heels of candidates for the House and Senate calling for guardrails on the technology, with some even pleading that companies halt AI development until the government catches up.

Lawmakers join forces amid voter outrage over AI

AI and its data centers have quickly become one of the top issues ahead of the November midterms. Artificial intelligence data center are specialized facilities designed to train, run, and scale AI models, such as large language models. The data centers function like factories that produce intelligence through intense parallel computations.

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Tulsa County data center (Image: Getty)

In recent months, as companies continue to push AI and propose building data centers across the country, the development has uniquely drawn bipartisan opposition. In fact, the debate around data center is one of the few modern issues that seems to cut across party lines, demographics, and geography.

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Supporters of data centers, including President Donald Trump, praise a potential jobs and economic boom as a result of data centers, while helping the U.S. thwart China in the geopolitical race for technological supremacy.

However, the residents of such communities, which are often rural ones, cite their opposition to dwindling farmland, declining water supplies, and rising electricity bills. Adding to concerns are how massive corporations could reshape small-town America into nodes in a national network of computing warehouses.

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The president has warned about China's technology gains and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said that a federal pause on data center construction might be a "dangerous prospect."

Demonstrators call for city-wide data center moratorium in Philadelphia (Image: Getty)

Still, most registered voters oppose building a data center in their area, according to a July Fox News poll, including 60% of Republicans and 53% of MAGA voters.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a one-year ban on large data centers. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a fellow Democrat, said his administration would no longer prioritize data center projects when it comes to issuing construction permits or granting developers lucrative tax exemptions if they don't meet certain standards.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a halt on approval of new data centers until audits determine their impact on the state's electrical grid.

Abbott told ABC News that data centers hadn't been working in collaboration with state or local officials and "basically dug their own grave for the problem that's been caused for them, and that's why they got the backlash they deserve."

The Republican Party's Senate campaign arm is worried enough about the issue potentially deciding races in Ohio, that it drafted a memo outlining how to respond. But politicians on both sides of the aisle have turned data centers into a punching bag.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, a Republican running for an open House seat, has pledged to halt their construction.

"If Silicon Valley wants to build their liberal empire, they can do it somewhere else," he said in an ad.

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Source: “AOL Breaking”