Political pressure against building superintelligent AI is starting to build in Washington, which is bad news for AI labs and good news for people worried about the technology.

• Bernie Sanders has written to Sam Altman calling for a halt to superintelligence work, and several other members of Congress are now raising the same alarm.
• Governments and the UN are quietly seeking advice from AI risk researchers, though staffers say they agree in private while being told not to speak publicly.
• The pro-AI lobby is large and well funded, and most politicians still avoid the topic because they don't know how it plays with voters.
• Surveys show ordinary people are already uneasy — over data centers driving up power and water costs, and over jobs.
• The core warning to leaders in both Washington and Beijing is simple: build a replacement for humans and you lose your own power.

Outlook: Expect more members of Congress to speak out and early proposals like deepfake bans to appear, but no serious brake on frontier AI development in the near term.