Senator Bernie Sanders writes in The Atlantic that tech billionaires influenced by transhumanism want to replace humans with “posthumans,” and calls for a pause in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence

Senator Bernie Sanders writes in The Atlantic that tech billionaires influenced by transhumanism want to replace humans with “posthumans,” and calls for a pause in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence

On October 16, Sanders published an opinion piece. He quotes OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, tracing their views to transhumanism.

The piece opens with a question: “Should humans retain control of planet Earth? Or should we be replaced as the dominant species?” In his essay “The Merge” (2017), Altman suggested that humans would either become “the biological bootloader for digital intelligence” (a program that starts an operating system) and fade away as a branch of the evolutionary tree, or find a way to merge successfully with machines. A merger is “probably our best scenario,” because two species competing for dominance would inevitably come into conflict.

In October, Musk wrote on X: “Spreading superintelligence to the stars is an excellent success criterion for the biological bootloader.” In 2014, he wrote: “Hope we're not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable.” In an interview with The New York Times (2025), Thiel was asked whether humanity should survive. After a long pause, he answered “yes.”

According to Sanders, transhumanists believe technology will allow us to move beyond being human by creating a new species or merging with machines. These “posthumans” would be more intelligent than we are, make no mistakes, conquer the universe, and “live forever.” These ideas, he argues, are “the foundational beliefs of the most powerful people in the world, who are directing trillions of dollars toward making them a reality.” Philosopher Émile Torres has argued that merging with machines leads to the replacement of humans: posthumans would have no need for humans, who would consume limited resources.

Sanders writes that machines have already begun replacing humans by mastering language and mathematics. He says almost nobody outside Silicon Valley wants such a future: in a Quinnipiac University poll dated September 30, 91% of Americans consider AI safeguards important, 74% have little or no trust in the leaders of AI companies, and 73% fear a threat to human survival.

Sanders cites Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica humanitas”. It describes transhumanism and posthumanism as the ideological backdrop to some centers of technological power and declares: “Humanity, great and wounded, can neither be replaced nor surpassed.” In response, Sanders writes, Thiel called the pope “an agent of the Chinese communists”; Politico quotes Thiel as saying: “I'm not saying he was a communist agent, but he was at least acting as a useful idiot for the CCP.”

The term “transhumanism” has different meanings. In the encyclical, it means using technology to “enhance” humans. Sanders’s account is closer to the encyclical’s description of “posthumanism,” in which humanity will “surpass itself.” In his New York Times interview, Thiel described transhumanism as transforming the natural body into an immortal one.

Sanders calls for an “immediate pause” in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence, defined as AI that is more intelligent than any human and capable of acting beyond our control. A bill introduced on September 23 with Representative Greg Casar would establish a Department of Artificial Intelligence. The pause would remain in place until the department is staffed and issues regulations, including a requirement to approve advanced systems before release; the ban would have no time limit. A company that violates the law could lose its right to develop advanced AI and have its assets confiscated, while those who set its policies could face up to 20 years in prison for recklessly violating the law.