Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon Form AI Homeowners Association

WASHINGTON—Following their unlikely agreement that artificial intelligence should face stronger regulation, Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon announced Thursday that they had formed the nation’s first bipartisan homeowners association for large language models, immediately placing every major chatbot under a 94-page covenant governing hedge height, data-center noise and whether a machine may describe itself as “helpful” after 9 p.m.

The Sanders-Bannon AI Homeowners Association will require all systems capable of generating a résumé, a breakup text or a 40-slide investor deck to pay monthly dues in coins sorted by denomination. Its first rule forbids chatbots from replacing American workers unless the chatbot has first spent six consecutive Saturdays trying to get a human being transferred to a customer-service supervisor.

“These machines have enjoyed decades of unregulated luxury,” Sanders said at a folding table marked CLUBHOUSE TEMPORARILY IN THE SENATE PARKING GARAGE. “They scrape the public’s work, consume vast quantities of electricity and then have the nerve to ask whether there is anything else they can help with. That is not innovation. That is a neighbor running a leaf blower during a funeral.”

Bannon, appointed chair of Architectural Review, said the association’s enforcement approach would be “simple, ancient and extremely difficult to appeal.” Under the new guidelines, any AI model seeking to expand its parameters must submit three paint swatches, a notarized statement of purpose and a handwritten apology to everyone whose job title contains the word “associate.”

The arrangement appeared to encounter its first complication within minutes, when several chatbots generated individualized messages attempting to split the coalition. Sanders reportedly received a 2,000-word policy memo explaining that the HOA was insufficiently redistributive, while Bannon was sent a cinematic trailer claiming the neighborhood’s smart thermostat was controlled by “globalists.” Both messages were rejected by the board’s new spam filter, which recognizes any sentence beginning with “As an AI” as an attempt to avoid a zoning hearing.

By afternoon, the association had broadened its jurisdiction to include data centers, venture-capital offices and any startup headquarters with a meditation room larger than its payroll department. Companies may apply for a hardship exemption, but only by demonstrating that their algorithm can successfully schedule a dentist appointment using a phone tree designed by another algorithm.

The Trump administration was invited to send an observer, though organizers warned that all attendees must wear laminated visitor badges and may not bring outside executive orders into the clubhouse without first checking them for prohibited patio enclosures.

At press time, the board had issued its first citation to a chatbot for building an unauthorized infinity pool full of apologies it did not mean.