Comment by Emily M. Bender

Treating speculative “superintelligence” as the policy target and proposing to freeze development until there’s public buy‑in and scientific consensus distracts from the actual, present‑day harms of AI systems. These systems are already amplifying discrimination, exploiting labor, and enabling surveillance. A ban premised on hypothetical future scenarios centers the agendas of the firms and figures hyping those scenarios and sidelines the communities bearing real costs now. Democratic governance means addressing concrete harms, enforcing existing laws, and creating accountability for how AI is built and deployed. We don’t need to stop the world for a fantasy of control over imagined “superintelligence.” We need to regulate and redirect the industry we have—today.