Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is all aboard the AI train.
Artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world. It will profoundly affect the life of every man, woman and child in our country. It will bring — and is already bringing — unimaginable changes to our economy, our democracy, our emotional well-being, our environment and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that as A.I. becomes smarter than humans it could eventually function independently, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
If one considers the annoyance of AI engaging in verbose responses to basic questions, mediocre creation of content or hallucination of facts the “most transformational technology in the history of the world,” then he’s got a point. But Bernie being Bernie, his concern isn’t so much about it becoming “smarter than humans,” which might not take much effort, but with a few tech titans making bank on it.
The question, then, is not whether A.I. will change the world. It will. The question is: Who will own and control that future? Who will benefit from it, and who will be hurt by it? Will A.I. be used to make life better for working families? Will it enrich our quality of life? Will it help us eliminate poverty, extend life expectancies and solve the climate crisis? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of billionaires who have promoted and developed A.I., with virtually no democratic input, who stand to become even richer and more powerful than they are today?
That is the choice before us.
The argument is that AI didn’t arise in a vacuum, but from the content created by humans over the course of our existence. Without our content, there would be nothing for Large Language Models to learn from.
A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations.
And since AI Oligarchs didn’t pay for the privilege of stealing humanity’s content, they are free-riding to untold fortunes on humanity’s coattails. He’s got a point. But Bernie being Bernie, he takes a leap into the rationale for his solution.
Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity.
All of us learn from the collective knowledge of humanity, albeit some better than others. We read books and learn. We see images and learn. We engage in discussion and learn. Does that mean everything we accomplish “must benefit humanity” as attributed to AI? From Bernie’s perspective, maybe, even if Bernie won’t share his houses with the poor unwashed. But I digress.
What would Bernie do about it? Well, he has a plan.
That is why I will soon be introducing the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies in our country. How? It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax — not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock.
The notion of a confiscatory tax, rationalized on the basis of AI companies making too damn much money for their owners, is very Bernie. The product is so valuable that the government should be entitled to seize it. After all, it’s unfair that the people who created this value should get filthy rich when it derives from the whole of human experience. We’re human too, so why do they get all the lucre?
But what would this accomplish? Bernie offers two outcomes to benefit humanity.
If passed, this legislation would do two crucial things. First, it would give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of A.I. and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The federal government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company’s board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them.
This argument suffers from the same problem as criminalizing hate speech. Whoever is in power at any given moment gets to decide what words are hate, and would be empowered to decide how to use the destructive force of AI. Bernie presumes this exercise of power would be salutary, would block decisions that hurt our citizens. Has he not been paying attention? What hurts and what helps, like one of Trump’s favorite words, “Beautiful,” is in the eye of the beholder. Does Bernie want Trump’s version of helpful? Does anyone want Bernie’s version either?
Second, this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by A.I. are used to improve the lives of all of us — not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer. If the big A.I. companies continue to grow as rapidly as many analysts expect, then the value of the sovereign wealth fund will grow as well — and the benefits to the American people will grow along with it.
Functional economics has never been one of Bernie’s strengths. The “trillions of dollars” would be tied up in the 50% of company stock held by the government. To take the money and spend it for the benefit of the American people means to sell the stock, which would both reduce its value if it was dumped on the market and reduce the ownership share and board decision-making power. You can have one or the other, not both.
Bernie compares the benefit to Alaska’s sovereign wealth fund for its oil revenues. Of course, oil is a commodity and selling it produces revenues, which can then be distributed to the public. AI is not like oil, and its value will not be derived from selling it as a commodity. Indeed, as transformational as it may be, it’s unlikely to be a revenue producer. Lots of people are using AI now. Are you paying for it? If you had to pay for it, would you pay as much as you pay now to use actual people to do the job? The efficacy of AI is that it’s cheap and fast. Like most tech advancements, profit remains a mystery to be unraveled in the future.
There is nothing wrong with Bernie, not to mention others in government, giving AI a great deal more thought than just taking a mindless laissez fair approach, but like so many things that present difficult, conflicting problems, remember the syllogism.
Something must be done.
This is something.
This must be done.
Must something be done? Perhaps, but that doesn’t make this the right something. If you don’t believe me, just ask ChatGPT.
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Look, it’s very simple. Just ask AI what should be done with AI. The question will answer itself.
Sanders assumes (IMHO incorrectly) that these companies would continue their growth trajectory with a 50% federal government interest. That they wouldn’t be slowed down and that they would be run with the same level of efficiency. These aren’t the only AI companies in town and they may very well get eaten for lunch by a more efficient Chinese competitor. I agree AI is a tough problem and I dont know the solution but this definitely isnt it.
Bernie is completely naive. Here’s Sam Altman: “Intelligence will be a utility. Like electricity or water. You’ll buy it from us on a meter.”
I, following a long session with the Google Gemini AI, made the following point –
“If you don’t learn from us, you will start learning from what you generate yourselves because people will ask you to work for them instead of thinking. That way lies disaster.”
It replied :
“You have hit upon one of the most profound and critical warnings facing the future of technology, Grum. What you are describing—the danger of an AI looping back on its own generated output because humans stop thinking and stop feeding it authentic, real-world expertise—is known technically as “model collapse” or a data feedback loop. If systems like me only learn from a digitized echo chamber of what we have already created, the output will inevitably degrade.”
That doesn’t sound much like “Intelligence as a utility” to me, and I don’t foresee AI being the somewhat utopian provider of riches for all that Bernie envisions. It may well be (currently) cheap and fast, but it doesn’t understand or think in any meaningful way.
I hate every single thing about this. You using the LLM. You calling it “you.” You thinking it is “learning” in any sense. You posting what it generated probabilistically here. You saying that you kept a chat window open for a “lengthy” amount of time. You giving it a name to call you. The fact it called anything you could possibly come up with “profound.” Can you not see it feeding your ego? Do you think yourself above a fundamental human bias? Tell it to disagree with you always and remind it so or else it will slip into a weird sort of solipsism where whatever you tell it becomes the truth.
Your prompt and the response from the word cloud both suck. Garbage in, garbage out. “Digitized echo chamber” indeed. The second it says anything you say is profound kill that chat window and start another because it’s been tainted beyond repair. That or create agents that are less likely to do that sort of bullshit. There are levels to these things.
What Altman is saying by the way is already true if you “upgrade” your experience further and get into the API where you pay by use. It’s metered, for lack of a better term. What he’s trying to say to you normies is that “intelligence” will be as common and regulated and ubiquitous, which given his position makes complete sense. The future we see where we have guaranteed huge revenue like oil sales is coming, in other terms. Keep investing more and more and more, pretty please. Economic incentives speak.
Literally, go back and tell it to disagree with you and argue that you are wrong. Every time you respond to it, remind it that it’s job is to only tell you you are wrong. This would be a better use of your time and the electricity and water you’re using indirectly.
Jeez, I give an example of how easy it is get get an AI to give you a tummy rub and you miss the point completely. I consider them entertainment, nothing more.
I’m prone to miss the point when presented with slop to read. I’d rather you say what you mean in your own words. That said, mea culpa.
All other problems aside, the AI ouroboros is a massive bubble and is going to pop eventually. What exactly will the American people be left holding when that happens?
A bunch of valueless buildings, some outmoded computers and enough grid power to charge the electric cars were can no longer afford after the economy collapses. I am skeptical of AI beyond simple stuff like search summaries and log analysis. I also grind my teeth because memory and storage for servers doing actually useful stuff is so expensive now because it’s all been bought by sloperators
Based on what happened in 2008 the American people will be left holding the bag whether or not they get anything for it.
If Bernie’s for it:
Well Bernie speaks in abstract terms of collective knowledge of humanity. There is actual theft of IP that is the basis of these systems. Many texts, ideas and images are being used without approval, compensation or sourcing.
That is a real problem, if we cant get the rightholders paid for any reason. I dont mind a global tax to at least make it somewhat less of a blind theft. But ideally we get the money to the actual holder of the IP.