El-Sayed labels AI ‘existential threat’

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) labeled AI an “existential threat” Tuesday, as he laid out a framework that aims to get the technology “under control.”

El-Sayed, who is locked in a tight race with former Rep. Mike Rogers (R), called for a pause on frontier AI development and a ban on artificial superintelligence .

“Right now, the whims of a few tech billionaires are the only thing stopping AI from developing to the point that it poses an existential threat to humanity,” he said in a statement. “That is unacceptable.”

He pointed to a series of recent cybersecurity incidents involving AI agents and stark warnings from researchers about the technology’s potential consequences for humanity, arguing there needs to be a halt in development until sufficient guardrails are in place.

Under an earlier iteration of his AI platform, El-Sayed suggested all frontier AI companies should be chartered as public benefit corporations and divested from major tech companies, with the public holding a 50 percent stake in the firms and receiving dividends.

He also called for restrictions on the technology, barring it from denying medical care, independently firing weapons, conducting mass surveillance and making life-or-death decisions.

His latest AI framework seeks to bar recursive self-improvement, in which AI trains and improves itself, and require AI kill switches that could shut down the systems if needed.

El-Sayed also argued for the creation of a cabinet-level AI safety agency, mandatory reporting of security incidents and criminal penalties for executives who “recklessly break the rules.”

“Donald Trump, Mike Rogers, and their Big Tech billionaire donors can’t be trusted to keep either Michigan or humanity safe from the existential dangers of unrestrained AI,” he added Tuesday.

Trump has taken a more hands-off approach to AI regulation, seeking to allow the companies to police themselves amid concerns that stricter limits could cause the U.S. to fall behind China.

But Rogers has sought some distance from the president on the issue, calling for a slowdown in AI development “to allow the government and its partners to catch up and put stricter protocols and guardrails in place.”