On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) responded to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pushing bans on types of AI by saying that “no society has actually ever been able to ban technology. The only time that happened was in Japan, for a period of some years, they were able to stop guns from coming in. But, as we all know, eventually, the Japanese also relented.”

Co-host Boris Sanchez asked, “[W]hy not go further, even to what Sen. Bernie Sanders has suggested, which is a total ban, a not permanent ban, a semi-permanent ban on superintelligence?”

Lieu answered, “So, if you look at human society, no society has actually ever been able to ban technology. The only time that happened was in Japan, for a period of some years, they were able to stop guns from coming in. But, as we all know, eventually, the Japanese also relented. So, I think a better approach is to regulate AI so that catastrophic risks don’t happen. And, right now, these companies can turn off their systems. We want to make sure that they can continue to train their models, no matter how smart they get, to continue to listen to humans and to be able to obey shutdown orders. Because if you have a view that, look, these companies are going to create super-intelligent things that can never be turned off, then we might as well just go to Bora Bora and wait for the apocalypse.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett