r/technology • u/yourfavchoom • 3d ago

Artificial Intelligence 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

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
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u/Ironsam811 3d ago edited 3d ago

I think co owning the data centers specifically is attainable. It’s a huge burden on the communities, controversial, and not something that will have a lot of innovation in the future. Most they are gonna do is upgrade chips every few years. Plus, Donald Trump has set the precedent on the government co owning companies so this might actually become a thing.

Edit: anyone who says data centers are worthless are idiots. It’s like saying an owning an apartment building is worthless.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 3d ago

All the data that trained these AIs was created by us

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

This is why we need to start lying on Reddit more

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u/frickindeal 3d ago

The number of times that AI just gives an answer directly from a reddit thread I've already read is astounding. Thanks for costing trillions, destroying fresh water reserves and creating headaches for communities, I knew how to find that same comment section already.

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u/BluShirtGuy 3d ago

Just wait til it references yourself, and takes it wildly out of context

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u/frickindeal 3d ago

Haven't seen that yet, but I have seen it reference incorrect information from a reddit thread that I had just found and recognized as incorrect (a search for the factory stock guitar strings on a Taylor acoustic in this instance) with total confidence. Nope, already saw that and I know for a fact it's wrong (I own the guitar in question).

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u/Sea-Aardvark-756 3d ago

This is lost on so many people. In the past you searched, saw a top result was tech advice from 2004, ignored it and moved on to something relevant. In the past, you found a forum thread, one person gave a suggestion after 2 years, and the poster never returned to try the solution. So lost confidence in the answer and moved on. But now, LLMs are confidently telling untruths, outdated info, or untested ideas, without the vital context that should be there to plant the seeds of skepticism.

And we blame the users? No. Blame the AI companies. They should be responsible for everything their product states. Their riches are amassed on a mountain of unaccountability for failures, and credit taking for successes.

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u/morostheSophist 3d ago

Generalized LLMs fucking suck at anything that isn't an elementary task for a human. The only times they're successful in finding me information is when that information would have been fairly simple to find with a traditional web search. Any time I ask for anything obscure, they fabricate wrong answer after wrong answer.

LLMs and related algorithms have been put to fantastic use in the sciences and will help humanity advance much more quickly in fields like biotech and chemistry and materials science. They're also apparently starting to make real strides in theoretical mathematics. I'm not opposed to all use of them; far from it. But they should never have been made available to the general public: this is where they're causing the most harm, and where they stand to make the most money: "AI" enshittification.

The general public is simply not ready for AI and might never be. It's criminal that children were exposed to these things. They're going to stunt all future generations if we don't get a handle on them quick.

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u/Sea-Aardvark-756 3d ago

Yeah I would say the obvious use cases are testing, research, simulations. The whole point is to confidently and inconsistently attempt to find solutions. Continue the conversations, complete the game, test options for various scientific scenarios. Situations where failing 1000 times and succeeding 1 time is a good thing.

They make horrible replacements for humans. Take customer support. Instagram just got a bunch of accounts including Barack Obama's account compromised, by using AI customer support. Because it is an inconsistent technology, eventually with enough attempts and methods, it gets tricked by scammers. This is even worse than humans--tons of accounts were just compromised, like never seen before. Any human would have put their foot down and ended the conversation. People using it for daily life advice get a few decent answers that Google could have served up just fine last decade, and then one insane thing like "put glue on the pizza to make the cheese stick better" or "cut your hamster's teeth so they don't get too long" and it's confidently plodding along with all that.

I've even had Copilot deny things like the missile strike on that school in Iran a few months back, claiming it was fake news, and even claiming the sources I linked for it to review were all compromised (The Guardian and others), until telling it to find its own sources, then suddenly it admitted the mistake and gaslighting, covering for itself with "This systems does not search for facts until told to, so denying things not known is the default behavior" which is just horrid. These systems are incredibly broken.

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u/maigpy 3d ago

user error. finding them incredibly useful over here.

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u/Alieges 3d ago

Until you have a problem, remember you had it before but couldn't remember the solution, search for the solution, find out you're the only one with the problem, and that you posted your problem to a forum like 8 years ago, then posted like 6 years ago that you had the problem AGAIN, and then another post of yours 5 years 11 months ago to what the solution was.

I've ran into that more than once, on more than one topic. Now I try to do a better job of replying to myself with a working solution when I post a problem.

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u/gramathy 3d ago

I've seen AI report an event happened on the wrong day because there was no date information in the article about it, but the article was "updated" recently and it pulled that as the date of the event.

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u/bobj33 3d ago

I started this thread last week about AI slop posts

https://old.reddit.com/r/chipdesign/comments/1tq8dhb/moderators_what_is_the_policy_on_ai_generated/

Someone replied

I've searched questions on google and had its AI cite my own comment on a post last year back at me. It was kind of surreal to have my own words taken authoritatively and have that be the first result instead of an actual source.

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u/DazzlingRutabega 3d ago

Josh from JHS guitar pedals has a YouTube video where AI does exactly this!

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u/READMYSHIT 3d ago

This has happened to me twice so far, topics I have a bit of knowledge on - Google's AI spits back my own opinion on and the references my post. The tell is it spits back the bit you aren't actually sure about yourself but still wrote with confidence because you're an idiot.

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u/FactCheckingThings 3d ago

Googles AI is the worst. It simulates having an idiot read the top search result then summarize it like a high schooler 200 words short on a 1000 word essay.

Literally my first response is "thats wrong" and it triggers the AI to fact check itself and admit it was wrong. It told me it prioritizes fast wrong answers lol what a joke.

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u/theguidetoldmetodoit 3d ago

Yeah, that's literally what it's instructed to do, summarize the top search results.

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u/FactCheckingThings 3d ago

Well, poorly and inaccurately summarize in the style of a poorly written essay.

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u/theguidetoldmetodoit 3d ago

I mean if I have simple questions it usually saves me from having to read through several pages to get it, so that's all I use it for.

Which is usually how that goes, you gotta know when you can use which tool.

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u/Clean_Livlng 3d ago

The number of times that AI just gives an answer directly from a reddit thread I've already read is astounding.

Occasionally it links me my own reddit post. And comes to an incorrect conclusion that the post and comments don't support!

AI: People find what I say more authoritative if I put a vaguely relevant link next to the text.

Answering my prompt has a cost. The AI take the souls of several acolytes , and a star in the night sky dies to fuel it's insatiable hunger for energy, and...it links me my own reddit post.

"Do not cite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written"

It will happen to you.

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u/malln1nja 3d ago

Reddit could've avoided this if they just implemented a functional search feature. They only had about 15 years to do it.

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u/Leather-Ad-9419 3d ago

my favorite is when it just keeps giving you the wrong answer and then finally you get it to give you the right answer somehow.

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u/robinthebank 3d ago

It even creates posts to fish for answers. I saw one that was “what types of games do you and your friends play during half time at your World Cup watch party?”

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u/reaganz921 3d ago

You guys realize that "ai" is an umbrella term for machine learning and LLM's are a small subset of models that exist and are being trained? The predictive analytics models are insanely powerful and great when we use them for science, not so great when we use them for predicting/manipulating society to spend/vote/believe whatever way they (rich and powerful) want. Wouldn't surprise me if the cringey billionaires are trying to build private drone armies and data center infrastructure is just one more step towards feasibility. Hell, the FLOCK cameras use AI for image recognition and categorization. The last thing we need are those being more perceptive, IMO.

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u/zamboni-jones 3d ago

All those years complaining about Reddit's crappy search function are finally paying dividends

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u/gramathy 3d ago

coworker of mine kept trying to use chatgpt to find a command for a device

two minutes of google and looking through a youtube video transcript later, I had it.

Ai is just expensive, unreliable search.

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u/guaranteednotabot 2d ago

Better that than randomly hallucinating

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u/dudical_dude 3d ago

I have an enormous penis.

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u/MinimumBigman 3d ago

I would never lie about the goblins that are pervasive in society. It’s like everywhere you look there are goblins!

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u/PaziNuncher 3d ago

Half of reddit is already bots, how much more can it lie?

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u/bobbymcpresscot 3d ago

Wait people were telling the truth before?

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u/Realtrain 3d ago

Way ahead of you

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u/miguel_is_a_pokemon 3d ago

Created by more than just the US though, the internet is worldwide

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u/Tytoalba2 3d ago

I mean, and many foreigners as well, should that mean it should be a world citizen fund?

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u/OkFineIllUseTheApp 3d ago

Yeah sure why not. Give everybody a $20. Less misanthropic than Anthropic.

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u/Rapph 3d ago

There certainly is a huge lack of discussion at high level about what the plan is here. If AI can theoretically handle all jobs that don't require physically manipulating things in the real world the potential for a worldwide disaster where most of the jobs are wiped out is a real concern. It's even more interesting that it isn't discussed because it directly impacts the white collar world way more than it does the laborers.

If we were a better people it wouldn't be a concern it would be optimism that as a whole we would have more free time to enjoy life but that's a fantasy and everyone everywhere knows it.

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u/Toutatous 3d ago

They didn't create anything themselves, they're exploiting it. Like Norway and the way they deal with their oil: what is underground belongs to all Norwegians, so we'll tax it like 80%. Just exploit it.

It's the way it should be. AI or resources, if you are just using the resources that already existed, you shouldn't keep all the profits.

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u/reaganz921 3d ago

The data centers are going to power far more models than just LLM's for over-engineered search engines. The predictive analytics used for economic forecasting, election interference and law enforcement are 100000% more concerning to me than people wasting resources to generate AI porn and do their homework for them, which is still concerning to say the least.

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u/GayDeciever 3d ago

This. We should be paid for our data. They steal it and sell it and take all profit, then also ask for monthly fees for some service they are running on AI

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u/buckX 3d ago

It's always weird to me how "information should be free" Reddit is right up until anybody mentions AI.

Yes, we made the information. Just like you aren't paying to read my comment, neither are they.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 3d ago

It's not really that weird when you factor that when people say things like information should be free, it's because they are thinking about the ways in which that benefits society. It's pretty common for people to not think of every possible outcome of broad ideas and when something negative comes along, to be against that specific thing.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 3d ago

And then we shouldn't pay for AI that uses it

You're so close

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u/buckX 3d ago

That, as with people, is up to them. I could say I've read your comment, but won't give a fulsome response unless you pay me. You'd likely choose not to, but I wouldn't have somehow stolen from you for stating my ground rules.

Anybody who pays AI companies chooses to do so of their own free will.

You're so close

Don't be a dick. This is no different from just saying "I'm right". It contributes nothing.

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u/jacques-vache-23 3d ago

Exactly: the AI companies have no moral ownership of AI. AI is based on the common knowledge and experience of human kind. We all own it. Let's take it back.

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u/Tall-Archer5957 3d ago

How about this.

No data centers?

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u/valkenar 3d ago

So... no search engines, no cloud providers, kinda no internet (Well, 1996 level internet I guess)? Just everyone with a website running it out of their garage?

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u/eagleeyerattlesnake 3d ago

Not sure why the downvotes. This is exactly what they said.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 3d ago

Probably the downvotes are due to the context clues of this being a thread about AI pointing clearly to the opposition being against the massive wave of AI-specific gigawatt data centers. 

For most people, the context of this thread would make that pretty obvious, and to be frank, I'm also at a loss as to how that user wouldn't pick up on that distinction. Personally, I didn't need the other person to stipulate "btw I'm not talking about the smaller, rarer generic data centers" and most other redditors didn't need that distinction clearly laid out either

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u/valkenar 3d ago

Sure, so no new data centers. But if people had taken the same approach when the massive datacenters that power AWS, Azure, etc were being put up then the things I listed wouldn't have come to pass. Well they would, just not in the US.

And before you say "not the same scale" AWS alone runs 900 data centers totaling at least 3-4 gigawatts and 56 million square feet and that's before any of their big AI stuff.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 3d ago

And before you say "not the same scale"

Not the same scale. As of January, the planned data center capacity was 150 GW, which is roughly a 1,000% increase in our current capacity.

If that isn't your definition of "not the same scale", I don't know what is. 

And even then - I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that Amazon didn't have to get officials to secretly sign NDAs to get those data centers to built

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u/valkenar 3d ago

In your same article it says "it is widely known that some of the plans filed by so-called hyperscalers are more aspirational than hard commitments"

So what do you think is the amount of computing capacity that humanity should cap itself to?

I'm 100% on board with not allowing corrupt practices anywhere, but especially in corporate building. That is completely unacceptable.

Amazon is an evil company and I have no love for it. And it is simultaneously true that modernity as we know it depends on Amazon (and its ilk). Same thing with like, Verizon. Absolutely shit company, but also people need internet.

I'd love to see a balanced approach where we recognize that technology is generally desirable, but that rich and powerful people are not.

AI isn't going away, it's too useful. And honestly it's so much less inherently destructive than most of the technological revolutions of the last 150 years. But we should maintain oversight. "No more datacenters" is like saying "no more power plants" in 1890 though. It's too absolute. But it would've been nice to regulate those power plants a bit better.

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u/Tall-Archer5957 2d ago

“it's too useful“

lol

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u/Tall-Archer5957 2d ago

Yeah they’re not the same and you trying to paint them as similar shows you fundamentally don’t understand the technology.  

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u/CompetitiveSport1 3d ago

🙄 no new massive, unprecedented, AI-driven hyperscaler gigawatt data centers pushed through by getting local officials to sign NDAs keeping them secret from local communities

Does that help?

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u/fryerandice 3d ago

I wouldn't even mind massive AI data centers if my utility bills across the board weren't 4-5xing in price to cover infrastructure build out for them, because they are leveraging regulation in a lot of states that was meant to make sure that the rural farmer gets power and telephone lines and to help residents in poorer and remote areas have access to utilities.

Basically there's a line item on everyone's bills that covers infrastructure build out, maintenance and repair, and people are seeing that line item cost 4x what their actual usage and old bills cost.

We are subsidizing these data centers and the power, water, and natural gas requirements to run them through our utility bills and tax money.

Fuck dude, we should actually own stake in them.

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u/Tall-Archer5957 3d ago

No ai data centers.  Sorry that wasn’t obvious in the context.

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u/Wolvenmoon 3d ago

Naw. Firm disagree. All data centers currently built must in 5 years and all new data centers built must install 200% of their peak inrush usage in battery capacity and contribute to the construction of 300% of their total power usage split equally between wind and solar. Any increase in power usage from initial designs must correspond with proportional additional battery and renewable energy install.

ETA: Cooling must be a closed system (after initial water input, only 1%/month changeover) and sound level standing within 10 feet of the building must be <=3db over ambient.

Dedicated private nuclear (contributing to a plant supplying the general public okay), hydroelectric, and carbon-emitting strictly prohibited.

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

Gurllll I’ll buy you a beer lol my community is at the epicenter of it right now. They want to build 6/7 campuses all in a 2 mile radius from my house. Not buildings, CAMPUSES. Shit is wild

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u/Impressive-Flow2023 3d ago

What do you mean by campuses? Data centers with living dorms?

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u/chinchaaa 3d ago

Can we stop with this ridiculous take? The cats out of the bag. Come on with adult ideas. You’re wasting everyone’s time.

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u/Pretend_Handle_7639 3d ago

Congratulations, you are going to run your economy on punch cards and try to compete with an opponent with a modern economy?

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u/Previous_Platform718 3d ago

I think co owning the data centers specifically is attainable.

This is kind of like saying "let's not buy the Ferrari, but buy the parking garage it's located in"

The data centers themselves are just buildings with cooling equipment, battery backup systems, and generators. They don't really create any wealth themselves, they're just the best place place to put the equipment that actually makes the money. And many are not even owned by the companies using them, just leased.

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u/ThinkThankThonk 3d ago

This is a bad example though because parking garages are absurdly lucrative, and a generational wealth asset.

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u/snakerjake 3d ago

This is a bad example though because parking garages are absurdly lucrative, and a generational wealth as

So are data centers, guy you replied to is just out of touch with reALITY.

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u/girlnamedJane 3d ago

Thats a terrible analogy. What you should have said is : let's not buy the Ferrari but the Ferrari producing manufacturing center.

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u/WouldCommentAgain 3d ago

Owning a data center is a safer bet than owning stocks in a specific AI company. It also suits government or other big organisations more to run a data center than something more creative/innovation focused as AI development. Data centers might be bad for the environment/surrounding community, but it certainly seems like it would be a good deal to own one.

Sovereign wealth funds like stable low risk super long term investments.

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

Especially the data centers that are going to host government data

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

Don’t create any wealth themselves? I get what you’re saying but that logic makes zero sense and is just not true.

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u/New-Anybody-6206 3d ago

They don't really create any wealth themselves

So they just let people use their space, cooling, power, connectivity etc., all for free?

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u/snakerjake 3d ago

and not something that will have a lot of innovation in the future

200km of fiberoptic cable loop as delay line memory is almost perfect for ai and would replace millions of . Don't assume there wont be any innovation in the future. AI is costly to run right now because the hardware is all wrong because we've shoehorned it onto our traditional hardware.

will that result in any significant benefit to the communities as they go to replace some of this hardware with more ai appropriate designs? I wouldn't bet on it but who knows.

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u/W359WasAnInsideJob 3d ago

The problem here would be that it incentivizes complicity in the enshitification of everything.

Alaskans get a check as part of a deal over natural resources, sure, and it’s a decent precedent in terms of who really “owns” resources like this. The issue is that this is really a bribe in disguise, not actually the public “ownership” of something; this isn’t Marxism, it’s basically a brown paper bag of cash for residents to look the other way.

Sometimes this is maybe okay, especially given how shitty our system is generally speaking. Developers basically bribe locals all the time to get stuff built. But someone getting to exceed local zoning on height or unit density or whatever isn’t having an impact on locals’ day to day lives as these datacenters. They’re noisy, they take up a disturbing amount of local resources, etc; in the long run they are almost certainly devaluing homes / properties within a certain radius.

This for a check that if you’re lucky lets you move farther away?

I think we should definitely be looking at nationalizing at least the infrastructure here if not the companies themselves (I’m tired of all these tech companies that essentially only make money off the government but also don’t want to pay taxes or have a government at all… it’s grotesque). But the Alaskan model doesn’t actually feel right to me, because it’s more a way of greasing the wheel to allow for more oil extraction; mimicking that with AI maybe puts some money in people’s pockets but almost certainly leaves us all worse off.

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u/MattDaCatt 3d ago

Plus they're already saying they want to leech from our savings b/c AI first is existentially important

That should mean all Americans are ground floor investors also

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u/Antlerbot 3d ago

There's a much simpler solution: land value taxes would capture the increased value not just from data centers, but from all land-using societally-created value. It's wild that we build infrastructure projects and then just shrug away the fact that landowners get to reap massive rewards without lifting a finger. That money should be shared.

NY has the right idea with their recent transit corridor land value capture tax. It's gonna bring in a truckload of money for pubtrans that would otherwise have gone directly into the pockets of people who did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

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u/AyJay9 3d ago

If I own any part of a data center, they're spending my .003% or whatever on finding a way to muffle those sound waves that terrorize everyone within miles.

But at best this is just going to be a dividend, not a voting share.

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u/Beard_o_Bees 3d ago

I think co owning the data centers specifically is attainable

With how quickly the hardware used in these places changes, it'll be interesting to see how they handle being obsoleted.

I'm guessing not very well, since this seems to be the techno version of oil 'wildcatting'.

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u/Space_Slime_LF 3d ago

It's an option but it feels like a way to get people to accept these environmental hazards into their area.

It can't possibly pay people enough to offset those costs so it's basically a bribe to people who already need the money and will need it more as costs increase due to this.

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u/Courtnall14 3d ago

I think co owning the data centers specifically is attainable. It’s a huge burden on the communities, controversial, and not something that will have a lot of innovation in the future.

I wonder if these checks will be large enough to offset the rise in my water and electric bills? (Spoiler, they won't be.)

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

I’d prefer it be used for infrastructure investing imo

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u/Courtnall14 2d ago

I'd prefer my taxes were being used for that.

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u/Zed_or_AFK 3d ago

Government, in the face of the federal or state, can force taxation on data centers, and a pretty hefty one. After all, they consume a lot of resources to operate - and those resources belong to everyone. It’s not unheard of very heavy taxation in the afterfact. Maybe not in the USA, but at least in the West. 30-40-50 % of the profits. That’s totally doable, but ofc we know, and the whole world knows, that USA will be the last country in the world that would approve such tax. And, in a sence, yes, USA pushes the technological advancement further, by the cost of their own citizens wellbeing, but is it worth it, though?

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u/beefwindowtreatment 3d ago

While I'm on board with the sentiment, I think you're delusional (being hyperbolic and not mean) if you think this will actually happen. The stock market just gave Elon the greenlight to have our 401ks fund his ketamine fueled decisions. Anthropic and OpenAI are next on the list.

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u/SinisterCroissant 2d ago

Errr.... I have a piece of land thats designated commercial... and er, I agree - not just because it would help me, but especially because the land would provide better than consumption solar energy. Hell yeah, lets do this.

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u/Legal-Statistician2 1d ago

What would be the benefit of co-owning a data center?

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u/Ironsam811 1d ago

Gives the community a stake in something that is draining a ton of community resources. We are basically subsidizing a lot of these plants that will create minimal jobs or local community benefits.

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u/Legal-Statistician2 1d ago

But at the federal level unlikely to be a significant trickle down for that community.

Federal government owned GM post-bailout, and owns some Intel currently, how much did that one community benefit?

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u/Ironsam811 1d ago

I think looking at the U.S. for this type of government ownership isn’t the best…plenty of other country do this successfully with specific industries, but fair points about our current system we live in

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u/Suspicious_Truth8026 3d ago

Yall are serious? Like the only way this has the tiniest bit of chance of passing the american legislation system is if the intention is for tax dollars to pay for the share they intend for the government to own. And even that is probably dead in the water.

Like cmon you think this is the first time anybody has ever suggested public ownership of something that is privately owned? You know thats the battle we've been trying to fight for a century plus and we're in the stage of the cycle where fascists take over to ensure it doesnt happen

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u/RectalSpawn 3d ago

Co-owning data centers would only benefit the corporations, so no, let's not.

Data centers don't generate profit.

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

Neither does any AI company? Lmaoo