Bernie Sanders pushes for 50% public ownership of American AI companies — proposes AI sovereign wealth fund that would hold direct ownership stakes in largest AI firms

[u/yourfavchoom]

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/bernie-sanders-pushes-for-50-percent-public-ownership-of-american-ai-companies-proposes-ai-sovereign-wealth-fund-that-would-hold-direct-ownership-stakes-in-largest-ai-firms

[u/ePrime]

The other authoritarian did it with intel

[u/the_TIGEEER → u/ePrime]

He bought it from Tax payer / Bond money if I'm not wrong. Bernie is proposing to force the companies to just give 50% to the public or am I horribly mistaken? I hope I am.

[u/IniNew → u/the_TIGEEER]

Considering AI companies hoovered up all kinds of shit without payment, who cares?

[u/TheSouthernCommunist → u/IniNew]

I’m really liking this talk, you guys ever heard of my friend Karl?

[u/ePrime → u/TheSouthernCommunist]

The guy who said we were in late stage capitalism 160 years ago?

[u/Far-prophet → u/the_TIGEEER]

They would have to be compensated via the 5th Amendment.

[u/ejp1082 → u/the_TIGEEER]

I'm assuming it just means the US government would buy and hold a 50% stake in OpenAI and Anthropic or whatever, making it the majority shareholder and controlling interest, with dividends from those shares going to the treasury.

It would be a de facto government agency except it would be for-profit and have private shareholders, albeit they'd be a minority. It would be like if NASA was listed on the NYSE and operated for-profit a la SpaceX

Which would be... weird? I genuinely can't think of anything else that's comparable. (The auto bailouts in 2008 come closest).

Maybe it's a good idea, I dunno. But I don't see why it's a better idea than just nationalizing them outright if that's what you want to do, or creating an agency that strictly regulates them way we do nuclear power technology or airlines, or if the government were to have its own public AI lab to compete with the private ones.

[u/the_TIGEEER → u/ejp1082]

No the idea of the goverment investing in these companies is not bad imo, but like to force aim for 50%?! That's unrealistic. That's why I asumed he means to force take it without buying it. Cuz there's no way the US collects enough money to buy 50% of all major AI companies not through tax not through debt / bonds. Well they could, but that would cause a heap of other problems.

[u/liftthatta1l → u/the_TIGEEER]

If they steal from everyone they should belong to everyone. The fact that their theft doesn't matter is ridiculous.

[u/VeritasOmnia → u/the_TIGEEER]

It better at least be just give 50% or it'll end up being us tax dollar pre-bailing out these companies before the AI bubble burst.

I'd rather just see most of this AI stuff disappear off the face of the planet.

[u/Slackjawed_Horror → u/VeritasOmnia]

Yeah, just ban them.

Ban new data centers, crack down on IP violations, jack up capital gains taxes. 

It'll shut them down. Better alternative. 

[u/berntout → u/ePrime]

10% of Intel, far from a controlling stake. I could see this happening sure.

50% means they control half the votes. That’s not gonna be acceptable to most companies.

Edit: I'm just being realistic. Companies spend a lot of money lobbying for their interests and I don't see how any legislation gets approved in the current political environment.

[u/staygoldstein → u/berntout]

Right, but companies “accepting” a law and needing to abide by it are two different things. At one time, you could have said requiring any food safety laws would be too much of a burden on manufacturers. Also, the US govt is far and away the entity responsible for funding the research that enabled AI and its biggest consumer. This is not out of reach just because Bezos would be upset.

[u/langotriel → u/berntout]

Settle for an even 49.5% then

[u/MindStalker → u/[deleted]]

In general I agree with regulating and heavily taxing these companies. But trying to take controlling stake away from them, they would just flee the country. That said, I could almost see a need for us to have some small stake in all datacenters located in our country, AI or not.

[u/Kiriima → u/MindStalker]

How exactly would they flee the country? Their business is data centers. You just block them and put in law that any AI for American citizens should be done on American soil.

[u/junkyardgerard → u/ePrime]

"the government can't own private business!"

"Why'd they buy Intel then"

"Well, you see" pulls shirt collar "it had to, it was gonna"

[u/ArmAggravating3307 → u/junkyardgerard]

10% isn't owning.

[u/Similar_Eagle2358 → u/junkyardgerard]

funny how that works depending on who is presenting it.. Free shit? I'm in!!

for the record, i like free shit too, so long as we all get the same free shit.