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/invyros]

Oh yeah, Alaskans think they're sooo special compared to the rest of America because they get their oil checks.

If we're going to hell in a handbasket thanks to these AI companies, at least let me into the party, I want my sovereign wealth fund check, too.

In all seriousness, I'm not optimistic about this getting anywhere close to happening in reality (although the aforementioned Alaska oil checks do set a precedent for us), but would love to be proven wrong.

[u/AstroWhirll → u/invyros]

The funny thing is that ideas like this always sound impossible until they're suddenly normal. Social Security, unemployment insurance, public pensions, even the Alaska Permanent Fund all sounded radical to a lot of people at one point. Whether this specific proposal happens or not, I suspect we're only at the beginning of the conversation about who should benefit from the AI boom. The technology is advancing much faster than society has figured out how to distribute the rewards.

[u/Buttercut33 → u/AstroWhirll]

Good point. If Orange Julius can say crazy evil shit to test it, let's counter with some crazy positive shit.

[u/Plow_King → u/Buttercut33]

hey, i'm not a fan of your use of that name. i had my first date at an Orange Julius!

/s

[u/AstroWhirll → u/Buttercut33]

The internet has spent decades proving that negativity spreads fast. It would be funny if the most effective response was just overwhelming it with wholesome nonsense

[u/Detachabl_e → u/AstroWhirll]

Publicly owned fiber networks have proven to be more affordable and reliable but before cities/towns started doing it, we had industry insiders saying they could never work/knowledge gap was too wide/need private internet companies to bring their expertise.

[u/xanthus12 → u/Detachabl_e]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Anything that acts like a public utility should be illegal to privately own.

The profit motive cannot be trusted to keep water clean, the lights on, or the bytes flowing.

The biggest mistake this country ever made regarding this was not nationalising Ma Bell (AT&T) back in the day and instead breaking them into the RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies).

The REALLY frustrating thing too, is that in 96, they realised their mistake, but instead of recognising that their blind, dogmatic faith in the "fReE mARKEt" was misplaced and that even breaking up the monopoly into smaller regional monopolies wasn't enough to curb the fuckery, so they passed the Telecom Act of 96, which might be the single most convoluted and complex piece of legislation in the universe. Not because of its wording or even its intent, but due to its enforcement.

It created the ILEC vs. CLEC dynamic, along with an entire Cambrian explosion of additional carriers, who all ended up either becoming consumer-fuckers themselves, or getting absorbed back into AT&T when the federal government decided we didn't like enforcing anti-trust law anymore.

LEARN THE LESSON! Nationalise them!

[u/CiDevant → u/AstroWhirll]

Just think how insane librarys are.

[u/Ironsam811 → u/invyros]

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.

[u/DarkwingDuckHunt → u/Ironsam811]

All the data that trained these AIs was created by us

[u/Ironsam811 → u/DarkwingDuckHunt]

This is why we need to start lying on Reddit more

[u/frickindeal → u/Ironsam811]

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.

[u/BluShirtGuy → u/frickindeal]

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

[u/frickindeal → u/BluShirtGuy]

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).

[u/Sea-Aardvark-756 → u/frickindeal]

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.

[u/morostheSophist → u/Sea-Aardvark-756]

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.

[u/Sea-Aardvark-756 → u/morostheSophist]

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.

[u/dudical_dude → u/Ironsam811]

I have an enormous penis.

[u/MinimumBigman → u/Ironsam811]

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

[u/PaziNuncher → u/Ironsam811]

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

[u/Tall-Archer5957 → u/Ironsam811]

How about this.

No data centers?

[u/valkenar → u/Tall-Archer5957]

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?

[u/eagleeyerattlesnake → u/valkenar]

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

[u/CompetitiveSport1 → u/eagleeyerattlesnake]

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

[u/oksurealright → u/invyros]

Those oil checks have been shrinking too lol

[u/E_seven_20 → u/oksurealright]

The Alaskan governor is a MAGA turd. That's why. He's wrecked the state.

[u/girlnamedJane → u/invyros]

Orange would save his entire term with this one single move. People will forgive him for everything

[u/LordGalen → u/girlnamedJane]

Some people might, most won't. I'll acknowledgw that he got this one thing right, but that won't erase all his other wrong shit.

[u/Coal_Morgan → u/girlnamedJane]

Dude's a pedophile who's protecting pedophiles.

He could cure cancer and I wouldn't forgive him.

I can say, "Yeah Nixon was right about signing in the EPA but he was a giant criminal shit head." I don't need to forgive Nixon to note that the EPA was one of the greatest things to happen for the environment.

[u/girlnamedJane → u/Coal_Morgan]

And you are correct to do so. My comment is more of a lament of the times. The dismal state of education and absolute lack of critical thought. Also its an era of unfettered greed and selfishness

[u/Perunov → u/invyros]

Unlike Evil Oil the Evil AI doesn't do anything remotely profitable though, just eats up funding. So it's more of a "oh yeah, you own the stock, you'll probably get taxed on that but no dividends for you". Imagine how happy CA would be if a bunch of people had theoretical money in AI stock.

[u/Radwood-Original74]

Now we’re talking.

[u/True-Desktective → u/Radwood-Original74]

Do social media next. 

[u/PumpkinMyPumpkin → u/True-Desktective]

And Amazon.

Take the post office - add more warehouses. Presto chango.

[u/True-Desktective → u/PumpkinMyPumpkin]

Yep. We’re getting there. I’m 100% ready to nationalize oligarch monopolies and downright kill industries. 

Fuck health insurance. Destroy that shit. 

[u/Winter_Body4794 → u/True-Desktective]

It's just parasitic.

[u/ssracer → u/Winter_Body4794]

Monopolies need to be busted or taxed into oblivion.

[u/atriaventrica → u/True-Desktective]

I work in health insurance. Please regulate away my job. Give everyone healthcare. I'll learn to weld.

[u/unpicked_name → u/True-Desktective]

I was honestly telling someone the other day, in the same way Trump bought Intel, and abused all the EOs, we need someone to just go up there and say "UHC is property of the US Government" then just integrate it as the public option. Same thing with FedEx/UPS, just roll them into USPS, everyone private competitor to the public option just get assimilated.

They've been gutting everything because they wanna promote their private service, just thank them for all the work they put into it, then put one of your guys in charge, and bam, monopoly defeated.

[u/surfergrrl6 → u/unpicked_name]

Ironically, FedEx and UPS use USPS all the time to finish their deliveries in areas deemed "not profitable enough."

[u/Chocolateconverse → u/surfergrrl6]

as a rural mail carrier most of the packages i get are ups and amazon last mile deliveries. the usps is really the only carrier willing to drive that “unprofitable” extra mile to make sure EVERYONE gets their mail

[u/surfergrrl6 → u/Chocolateconverse]

True, and it's a shame how few people realize this.

[u/verendum → u/surfergrrl6]

Socialize the cost. Privatize the profit. Corporate America.

[u/VastCardiologist2475 → u/unpicked_name]

I like that idea for if I ever become president. But I would sign it knowing it's likely also signing away my life, because Capital absolutely would NOT allow that. It would very likely result in full blown war, and at the moment I dont trust my side enough to WIN that war against Capital. But we are getting there. Its what FDR or Lincoln would have done.

[u/atriaventrica → u/unpicked_name]

The fact Space X is getting an IPO after being funded almost entirely by the US Government while siphoning funds away from the ACTUAL national space program is enough for me to say "fuck it, that's ours now".

[u/ice_up_s0n → u/atriaventrica]

They also have yet to turn a profit, which is highly unusual for a large cap company to be added to an index

[u/atriaventrica → u/ice_up_s0n]

I mean the IPO is an exit plan for employees and investors. It's pretty blatant.

[u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener → u/True-Desktective]

Insurance doesn't even make sense for it to be a privatized industry on a necessary thing like healthcare. It adds massive inefficiencies to the whole thing, is anticompetitive and all it does is extract funds meant for paying towards the well-being of participants into the pockets of companies as profit, inventivizing them to deliver the least amount of services for the most amount of money. Insurance is meant to be a pool of funds we contribute to collectively so that when issues come up, they don't cause financial ruin or prevent the individual from being able to receive the services they need at that time.

[u/Impressive-Flow2023 → u/PumpkinMyPumpkin]

He argued that the AI companies took all the internet data and made money. Those internet databcame from the people therefore the money must go back to the people as well.

[u/magniankh → u/True-Desktective]

God yes. Twitter and Facebook are such a plague.

[u/oulipo → u/True-Desktective]

I agree that billionaires shouldn't own social media. But that said, I think that governments owning social media and private access to messages is not the good idea that you might think it is... Imagine Trump having direct access to Twitter / Insta / FB / Whatsapp

[u/IvarTheBoned → u/oulipo]

The billionaires are not going to be friendlier to you or more protrctive of your private messages than the government. At least the government, in theory, is accountable to the public. Private institutions are accountable to no one.

Further, all the SM & telecom companies will already happily provide your private messages to the government if they ask for it.

[u/CurryMustard → u/oulipo]

The first thing is we can never allow "trump" to happen again, that means stacking the Supreme court, expanding the house of representatives, and repealing citizens united. I would also like to say idk if its possible but whoever runs on stripping musk and murdoch, and their families, of their assets and citizenships has my vote

[u/Tenement48 → u/CurryMustard]

Good luck preventing another "trump" from happening when he won the popular vote in the latest election. We would have to fix the public perception of him first.

[u/True-Desktective → u/oulipo]

You should hear Sanders out. His proposal mostly addresses that, and where it doesn’t, there’s room for amendments and improvements. 

It is not a nullifier to the idea of a sovereign wealth fund established via stock ownership of overly powerful and overly influential companies that built themselves on a public resource. 

During the broadcast era this was addressed differently. Airwave spectrum was declared a public resource that must be licensed and its usage came with preconditions on how and what would be broadcast. Not just technical but in content as well. 

The United States of America has absolute authority to step in on behalf of the people to propose imperfect solutions to staggering problems or runaway resource extraction.  

It’s the job of the people to elect legislators that can tackle concerns like yours while still doing the job of limiting recklessness of industry. 

[u/berntout → u/Radwood-Original74]

That’s all that’s going on because this would never happen unfortunately.

Companies would never allow this to happen.

Edit: I like this proposal but I don't think it has a chance of being approved, especially in the current political environment. It's great to talk about it for sure. Legislation may have been passed before that "companies don't like" but show me legislation requiring government ownership with a controlling stake (I.E. 50%+ ownership) that isn't temporary and used in an emergency situation, like a recession bailout. I can't think of a single example.

[u/JohnAtticus → u/berntout]

Companies would never allow this to happen.

Fun fact: The US has passed legislation before that certain companies did not like, and that legislation is still in effect.

If you personally don't like this proposal then go ahead and explain why.

Don't need to pretend like it won't happen because it makes Sam Altman sad.

[u/mashuto → u/JohnAtticus]

I think its more that big companies have so much influence these days over the laws that get passed that it seems incredibly unlikely for something like this to pass. Regardless of any of our individual feelings about it.

[u/Gabarne → u/mashuto]

Just comes to show that congresspeople serve only their donors and absolutely not their own constituents.

[u/Super-Contribution-1 → u/Gabarne]

Plumbing time!

[u/LordHammercyWeCooked → u/mashuto]

it seems incredibly unlikely

When does that ever fucking matter? Why do we keep bringing this up all the time? Why do y'all keep upvoting this bullshit?

WHO CARES ABOUT THE ODDS? JUST DEMAND WHAT'S RIGHT AND WORK TOWARDS IT.

[u/68plus1equals → u/JohnAtticus]

I mean I’m fully on board with this proposal but how do you realistically see this going through? Money in politics is the first reform that needs to be made, no other real reform is ever going to pass until that happens unfortunately.

[u/True-Desktective → u/68plus1equals]

 how do you realistically see this going through?

It’s a great issue to ask candidates who are running in the midterms about. 

It’s a great topic to bring up to your friends and family. 

It’s a great way to set up how to discuss AI data centers in your locality, and ALPRs that feed AI tools. 

It opens the conversation of the role of AI in creativity vs productivity and where the human labor fits in. 

Stop abdicating discourse and discussion to mass media at the top. Drive it from your community upwards. 

Yes. Money in politics is a huge problem. But if you look at our history - there has never been an era of problem free politics. It’s not an excuse for inaction. Major national momentum and sentiment that is durable and nationwide across sectors can and does affect change. 

TL:DR, if you actually want this don’t let Sanders be out on a limb alone on the issue. Be loud and vocal that you like the idea and want to see more. 

[u/daXypher → u/True-Desktective]

You can’t really expect these people to participate in their own democracy, can you? They’d rather bitch and complain that it’s impossible despite all politicians having publicly available phones and emails.

[u/True-Desktective → u/daXypher]

Never hurts to restate the fact that we are not powerless and word of mouth is influence. 

[u/daXypher → u/True-Desktective]

Fully agreed. We watched it live too, every time conservative politicians have backed down on something Trump made them do it’s because their constituents backlashed against it. Yet these guys still think they have no influence.

[u/Larcecate → u/68plus1equals]

Being unrealistic beats apathy any day

[u/craaates → u/68plus1equals]

I hate that you’re right, but as long as money can buy elections money will make the rules. We’ve also allowed the highest court in the land to accept “donations” so now money can buy the law makers and its interpreters. Until we separate money from the law we can only slow the decent into the collapse of democracy.

[u/gman-101010 → u/craaates]

This is a quote (not mine) that I will never forget:

Poor people pay taxes.

Rich people pay accountants.

Very rich people pay lawyers.

Billionaires pay politicians.

[u/Unique-Egg-461 → u/68plus1equals]

how do you realistically see this going through?

With this current admin? Mass protests. Strikes.

The current admin cares only about the all mighty dollar. Trump has routinely said he doesn't give a shit about you or me

[u/hopelesslysarcastic → u/68plus1equals]

I know we have a fucking idiot in the WH, but we didn’t always have such a shitshow of a government, across all facets.

We can and will change things because we wont have a choice but to do so.

We went to the moon, 50 fucking years ago…I think we can handle changing of laws.

I’m tired of pretending like this shit is impossible to do.

[u/Lyx4088 → u/hopelesslysarcastic]

It’s impossible so long as too much of the population lacks critical thinking skills and votes based on their own personal interest primarily over the benefit to society. We are such an individualistic country it’s a huge problem. Politically, people don’t care if policies will harm large portions of the population (and possibly even themselves) if they believe what a politician is advocating for will benefit them. When you stack that on people actually believing they too may become wildly wealthy one day so they don’t want vote for anything that will harm their wealth, you get people voting for corporations over people and voting for policies that are actively harmful to society because they don’t have the ability to critically think about these policies and blindly believe charismatic politicians.

[u/unselve → u/JohnAtticus]

Yeah this is the same attitude people had before the Progressive era and the New Deal. Not that that’s inevitable or even likely, but there’s historical precedent for it and it’s well within the parameters of the possible.

[u/TheGreatBootOfEb → u/unselve]

Yeah, a lot of Reddit are rather snobbish in their attitudes. “Oh if it’s possible, where is your exact plan? Oh YOU haven’t drafted one out? Then it’s impossible, just like I said.”

Like y’all, just because I say it’s possible to run a sub 2 marathon doesnt mean I’m the one who has to run it. Change starts with mindset and a will. If you can’t even do the bare minimum of wanting better, all you’re doing is holding water for the people that DON’T want change. I get that it feels quint and a bit kumbaya manifesting change mumbo jumbo to say it starts with mentality, but in this case it literally does.

It’s fine to recognize the hurdles and challenges to accomplish change, but just snidely going “nothing will ever change” is the HEIGHT of human arrogance. Who fucking knows what 10 years from now looks like.

[u/SirNarwhal → u/TheGreatBootOfEb]

Thank you for being so spot on with calling out the single most fundamental problem with humanity currently. It really honestly needs to be said more and more frequently. Everything starts with mindset and people are unwilling to change their mindsets and instead would rather engage in broken systems thus being way more complacent than those who have decided to remove themselves from some systems to help emphasize how broken they are and to better use their energy to start changing their mindset and mentality to actually start focusing on coming up with those plans after getting to that change in attitude.

[u/ur-mpress → u/JohnAtticus]

I think this fact would be more relevant if a different administration were in power. Current administration has been trying to give AI companies freedom to do whatever they want. Maybe certain states could impose this law but it is unlikely to happen at the federal level anytime soon.

[u/the_urban_juror → u/JohnAtticus]

"this is not politically feasible" does not mean "this is a bad idea.". People who voted for Bernie twice in primaries are already familiar with this concept.

[u/Hmm_would_bang → u/JohnAtticus]

Americans benefiting from the profits of AI is a good idea, it’s trained on us and is taking our jobs, there’s no reason that should only benefit a select few who have created nothing.

The U.S. having majority voting shares is what concerns me. These senators barely understand what an algorithm is, now they are going to govern the bleeding edge of technology?

[u/Sybertron → u/berntout]

Ya know I totally agree with you on the likelyness, but disagree on the requirement of the nihilism.

We did not cede total control to the corporations. They own quite a bit and of course have quite a lot of power, but the people still ultimately hold the strings.

Many of us overall just accept the pain, hopefully due to things like your house or 401k, but the reality of who really holds the strings hasnt changed.

Yes the vast majority of your representatives are massive POS that have held a lot more meetings with lobbyists than their voting base, and are happy to point at AOC or others as some kind of evil while the other 534 of them go hold meetings in secret.

But ultimately they can leave, they can be forced to adjust, but will the pejorative "you" make them?

[u/Randomly-Generated21 → u/berntout]

This should be the payment for the ai companies stealing all the copy written, licensed and otherwise protected art and data it used to feed its databases.

[u/MothashipQ → u/berntout]

Idk if you've noticed, but we are heading for a bit of an emergency situation. They can only fight unemployment by redefining it for so long.

[u/ePrime → u/berntout]

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/MIT_Engineer → u/Radwood-Original74]

Talking about what though? Bernie wants the U.S. government to... what, take our tax dollars and buy 50% stake in all American AI companies? Does he understand how incredibly expensive that would be?

Or is he just saying the government should rock up to Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, etc, and say, "OK, we're confiscating half your company, eat rocks." Does he understand how unconstitutional that would be? 5th Amendment's clear on this one.

[u/BilingSmob444 → u/MIT_Engineer]

Are we still doing constitutional stuff? I wasn’t aware

[u/Runfasterbitch → u/BilingSmob444]

I thought we were stealing $2B from the taxpayers to buy lambos for January 6th terrorists

[u/MrPres7 → u/MIT_Engineer]

Probably something like confiscate half the ownership stake from the wealthiest shareholders and redistribute it to American citizens. I promise you the billionaires don't need the money.

[u/adirtysocialist- → u/Radwood-Original74]

Socialism baby, the real thing even!

Which, duh, it's the transitional economy between capitalism and communism after all.

This is the natural evolution as we develop new technologies to free mankind from labor. It's literally the entire point. Once we solve the issue of scarcity and people no longer need to work bc technologies exist to free them, this sort of thing is needed.

That's not what the owners of this country want though and our govt doesn't exist to be the protector of its people any longer.

[u/reddittorbrigade]

When the AI bubble bursts, guess who will bail them out? -The government using our hard earned tax dollars.

[u/nnomae → u/reddittorbrigade]

Yeah, I'm sure they will all gladly sell the US government a 50% stake at their current made up trillion dollar valuations.

[u/Krelkal → u/nnomae]

Y'all don't read the articles. Bernie is suggesting a one-time 50% tax that's paid in shares. It's in the very first paragraph.

So predisposed to thinking that the capitalists always come out on top even when a democratic socialist makes a case for seizing half of the means of production.

[u/Aware-Instance-210 → u/reddittorbrigade]

AI services are not system relevant, are they?

I mean, bailing out the banks at least made sense in terms of without that the world would be fucked.

Whats to lose with those AI companies?

[u/RedNinja-03 → u/Aware-Instance-210]

Politician’s bank accounts, that’s all

[u/__redruM → u/RedNinja-03]

Retirement accounts as well. It would be a big bite, but certainly not empty them.

[u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS → u/Aware-Instance-210]

The stock market is entirely built on AI companies right now. It's soaring success doesn't help 99.99% of people, but it's failure will destroy plenty of lives because that's how the system is designed.

Every company is/was trying to incorporate AI into their business. AI fails, and suddenly your local grocery store is closing because they invested massively in agentic AI for optimisation of the purchasing of bananas or some bullshit.

[u/_nerb → u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS]

The entire market isn’t built on AI: https://www.syntaxdata.com/research/quantifying-the-s-p-500s-exposure-to-artificial-intelligence

But it’s definitely a problem that the majority of companies are parroting AI talking points to make sure their stock price goes up. Which is shocking considering inflation literally has it go up regardless of what they do…but CEOs gonna CEO.

Ultimately it feels like these AI companies will IPO, pull the rug out to get their paydays, and it’ll be a small but painful blip on the stock market timeline until companies realize AI is useful for small repetitive tasks and not completely replacing humans.

[u/Sad_Split_9983 → u/_nerb]

Nvidia is over 11% of the entire NASDAQ market cap. This is not even factoring in the many companies that are completely dependent on nvidia and the hundreds that would lose large portions of market cap. If AI collapses its not going to be a minor blimp its going to cause a recession.

[u/ball_fondlers → u/_nerb]

I mean, it’s not even good for small repetitive tasks - AI is MUCH less deterministic than scripting.

[u/FederalChocolate456 → u/Aware-Instance-210]

Everyone's 401K and retirement plan, including your average middle and lower class households.

[u/SomethingAboutUsers → u/Aware-Instance-210]

Whats to lose with those AI companies?

AI and tech companies make up the 8 of the 10 biggest companies on the NASDAQ by market cap and those 10 companies make up nearly 50% of the total index value. If they fail, it's absolutely going to tank the economy and take a lot of people's money with it.

Is AI itself worth saving? Not really, but here we are. Bailing them out would likely save lives, though in an ideal world the bailout would come with jail time for the billionaire assholes in charge of those companies and a total seizure of all of their assets to be auctioned off to help "pay" for the bailout.

[u/Axin_Saxon → u/reddittorbrigade]

Probably, but they’re gonna do that either way if it’s privately owned or if the government has a 50% stake in it anyway.

I’m sick of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Companies will harp on about how they are the ones who take risks so they should be rewarded but if they’re going to ask for government help when times are bad, they can pay their share when times are good.

[u/Lebowski304 → u/reddittorbrigade]

Exactly. This is not a clever idea…at all

[u/Moiyub → u/[deleted]]

calling people with concerns over AI Luddites is pure cope, theve accepted the delusional and desensitized narrative that was fed to them without a second thought

[u/SovereignPhobia → u/Moiyub]

Also, if people learned who the Luddites actually were they might go, "Oh shit, maybe that's a good idea."

[u/Mr_Quackums → u/SovereignPhobia]

The Luddites were right, but they also lost.

10 years later they were working in the automated textile industry: producing more product, working harder, and making less money than before.

[u/capnwally14]

A few notes

1. the fifth amendment disallows takings - meaning to do what Bernie proposes the govt would have to pay fair market value
2. many of these ai companies are unprofitable and are raising at 100x revenue. Does the govt really want to print trillions to buy 50% of the shares (basically giving liquidity to the private investors at a crazy premium)?
3. open source models like deepseek are 1/30 of the cost, so doing may be massively overpaying for assets that may not monetize
4. not all ai labs are pure ai companies - does the govt also buy 50% of google / spacex / meta? Any new ai lab that’s started in the future?
5. let’s set aside the financial aspect - if you’re worried about Palantir and govt control of private data, surely 50% control of super intelligences should be a concern as well? Like imagine if ai is hyper integrated in society and the innermost thoughts of folks and you have a president vance - would you be ok with that?
6. the govt already can control governance (via regulation) and collect economic upside (via taxes) of ai companies - why do we need to own the shares to get the benefits we might want?
7. this is broader than America - why would any other country be ok with American owning 50% of these companies and have them be integrated with their businesses / govt functions? How do the massive multiples for these companies make sense if their future customers will not buy if these are arms of the US govt?
8. how does this square with Bernies (and lots of the left’s) opposition to data center construction?
9. let’s say the govt does take shares and uses the wealth of ai share ownership to fund social programs. The ai shares today are already pricing in lots of future growth - how does that sustainably fund ongoing spending today? Simply owning the shares doesn’t work - you have to continually sell them. Does that mean the govt needs to maintain a floor price for this to work? Does that also then preclude future ai competitors from arising because the govt is reliant on these ai companies to fund social spending? Or does this mean the ai cos have to continue growing at an increasing rate to enable the spending (which ai safety people worry about)
10. if the ais were trained on humanities information, why should the benefits only accrue to the US?

This is such a confused proposal and it kind of highlights where I think the progressives need to get their story straight

1. is ai a real phenomenon?
2. is ai growth a good thing? Are there safety risks involved? What’s the trade off with data centers in local communities
3. is ai for humanity or for the US? When we say benefit us all do we mean all workers or the US only
4. is concentration of ai control with the govt good or bad? If the wrong party is in charge does your answer change?

[u/neuronexmachina → u/capnwally14]

Yeah, I'm not liking how the contract dispute between Anthropic and the DoD would have played out. As it currently stands, a majority of Anthropic's voting shares are zero-value and are held by the long-term benefit trust they set up. The trust has zero financial incentive and ensures Anthropic is aligned with its mission of "developing and maintaining advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity."

If the government held >50%, they could just take control of the board and force Anthropic to accept the DoD's terms regarding domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.

[u/Exodor → u/neuronexmachina]

If the government held >50%, they could just take control of the board and force Anthropic to accept the DoD's terms regarding domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.

This is an excellent point that I hadn't considered. This alone makes even the broader idea an instant dealbreaker.

[u/terminal157 → u/capnwally14]

This is meant to grab headlines, no one thinks there's any chance of it happening. It's theater.

[u/-kylehase → u/capnwally14]

Underrated comment. You make excellent points

[u/oodopopopolopolis → u/capnwally14]

Extremely well put! I understand the sentiment behind this idea but the reality is not good. It's an idea attempting to make up for basic government dysfunction like many other things circulating these days.

[u/Neither-Breakfast195 → u/capnwally14]

This is Bernie Sanders, dude has built a career on half baked ideas that have no chance of going anywhere.

[u/BagOnuts → u/Neither-Breakfast195]

He's been in office for decades and you can count the number of bills he's proposed that have been passed on one hand.

You can argue that it's his his soapbox that makes him stand out, but it's still just that- a soapbox. 99.9% of his proposals go nowhere because they are unrealistic, half-baked ideas that sound great for news and TV but have no path to ever getting passed.

[u/uber_neutrino → u/capnwally14]

This is far too sophisticated a take for reddit. You are supposed to tell "down with capitalist" while sipping your latte around here.

[u/cm0011 → u/capnwally14]

Yeah, I thought we were against government control over data.

[u/daizo678 → u/capnwally14]

Thank you. Most people here only have opinions that AI bad, capitalism bad , take money from them without thinking about it for 2 more seconds. US government can just tax them more if they need more money. Forcible acquisition or buying the shares are ideas that have lots of issue.

[u/wanker7171 → u/capnwally14]

As someone who knows people who talk with Sam Altman, creating a sovereign wealth fund with a public opponent is already something he has seriously considered because they are terrified of being declared a national security risk and being nationalized.

I’m impressed Bernie must also be part of these channels to be taking the idea seriously as well

[u/Majestic-Outside3898 → u/capnwally14]

A lot of good points. I will just add that #2 alone makes this proposal preposterous. Congress can tax and regulate. “Owning” is very bad.

[u/OnlineParacosm]

You don’t wanna invest in overpriced GPUs right now though so I wonder how you do it where they’re not putting taxpayers on the hook for the horrendous math that has gone into these facilities

[u/natefrogg1]

They trained these systems on so much of our data, I keep telling people that it is your data and you were never compensated, efff giving them more money and run what you can locally on your own systems

[u/Talisign → u/natefrogg1]

Yeah, I wouldn't usually be this on board with this kind of thing, but unless you are a complete luddite, as in did not write on the internet once, your writing is powering it. Sometimes through dubious agreement.

[u/numba1cyberwarrior → u/natefrogg1]

You consented when you used most websites, apps, etc

[u/outphase84 → u/natefrogg1]

The problem is you were compensated. You received internet services in exchange for the data.

Reddit spends $400M per year in operating costs. If you’re not paying for a service with cash, you’re paying with data that you hand over.

[u/Oceanbreeze871]

This would all but ensure that the taxpayers are gonna pay trillions to bail out the companies when they fail

[u/FreeBricks4Nazis → u/Oceanbreeze871]

That's already what's going to happen 

[u/Ass4ssinX → u/FreeBricks4Nazis]

I wouldn't be so sure. They aren't banks. We can do without AI.

[u/FreeBricks4Nazis → u/Ass4ssinX]

Yeah, but the oligarch owners have bribed the right people 

[u/One-BigChungus → u/FreeBricks4Nazis]

It happened right in front of our eyes in 2008. They'll do it again for sure.

[u/Flat_News_2000 → u/Ass4ssinX]

They're already getting taxpayers to pay for their utilities. They would get a bailout for sure

[u/permawl → u/Ass4ssinX]

AI tech can be considered a serious state security concern and would need to be protected.

[u/ob_servant1 → u/Ass4ssinX]

We can do without big fucking trucks but we bailed their asses out before

[u/EstelLiasLair → u/Oceanbreeze871]

Oh boy, if you didn’t think that your taxes are all gonna go to a bailout for those Too-Big-To-Fail corporations, you haven’t been paying attention to the late stage capitalism show that’s been going on for over 20 years.

[u/EmployeeEmergency481 → u/Oceanbreeze871]

Exactly. This is a terrible idea. The AI companies are EXTREMELY overvalued and public ownership is a liability for the state.

[u/Caymonki → u/Oceanbreeze871]

That’s gunna happen either way, Capitalism at it’s finest

[u/meltyourtv]

So leave the government as bagholders when the bubble pops?

[u/chaoticelectron → u/meltyourtv]

Wait, i thought that was the case now lol

[u/Fragrant_Oil9595]

I like the principle, though as a U.S. taxpayer I certainly don’t want the liability of these fundamentally unprofitable companies which are causing a huge amount of harm.

With regard to the latter, eventually litigation should be pursued to address education system harms, and I believe and monetary or other damages should be directed to compensate those who are being hurt.

[u/InterestedBalboa → u/Fragrant_Oil9595]

You already have the liability, privatise the profits and socialise the losses is how this all works.

[u/MIT_Engineer → u/InterestedBalboa]

That isn't a very common thing though. The bailouts in 2007-2008 for example were the government acting as a lender of last resort. We didn't hand out money for free, we charged interest: the taxpayer came out ahead.

If you take our tax dollars and buy a 50% share in these companies, and the companies go down in value, taxpayers aren't going to come out ahead, they'll be well behind.

[u/Exostrike]

Subordinating AI companies to society is paramount. Even if a fraction of their hype on AI and robotics comes true, we need the people making these decisions not to actively make a cyberpunk dystopia

[u/NapoleonsDynamite]

AI companies are profiting off our collective knowledge, humanities knowledge. Makes sense that humanity should benefit financially.

[u/runnerkim]

We're paying for it so we may as well own a chunk of it. I swear billionaires are the biggest welfare queens out there. Musk would be worthless if all his government contracts cancelled.

[u/shod55]

The internet should have been made a public utility 20 years ago.

[u/FangFioDente]

I don’t want to lose money to an ai bubble 

[u/FreeBricks4Nazis → u/FangFioDente]

If you have any money invested in the stock market, you're going to regardless 

[u/No_Criticism_5861 → u/FangFioDente]

Fair, but your tax dollars will go towards their bailout either way

[u/soloman747]

Slippery slope from capitalism, to socialism, to eventual communism.

The fundamental difference lies in the allowance of private enterprise: socialism typically features a hybrid economy where the state or public owns major, essential industries (like utilities or healthcare) but permits individuals to own and profit from small-to-medium businesses under heavy regulation or worker-cooperative models; conversely, communism completely abolishes private property and corporate ownership, placing all companies, factories, and farms entirely under state or collective control to eliminate private profit and social classes altogether.

[u/virtual_adam]

Bernie and Trump both pushing for this is pretty funny. On the other hand they went to school more or less around the same time, so maybe it’s just a geriatric thing

[u/AnalyticalAlpaca → u/virtual_adam]

They're both populists so it makes senese

[u/anon19111]

No way. After the last 1.5 years it's INSANE to me to allow the government to basically own private companies. Has Bernie been asleep? Does he think oh what we need is to give the government MORE power because it'll only be used for altruistic ends and put power back in the hands of the common folk. Unreal. What could go wrong?

[u/OmNomSandvich → u/anon19111]

Bernie is a socialist; of course he wants government ownership of corporations.

[u/GolotasDisciple → u/anon19111]

I mean, at least you would have some oversight. At this moment, the current government is literally playing all sides while manipulating the market and doing insider trading.

Like, Bernie is not asleep, he is just trying to get any attention he can because Americans are pretty numb nowadays. The vast majority of them do not care about anything socio-political. They do not read, they might watch some news here and there, but other than that it is complete apathy and disinterest, and that makes it possible for the current leadership to do whatever they want.

I disagree with good parts of his ideas, but I do support the overall premise. I am just not really sure what you want from him. He is trying to represent his ideology and his people. He is not a Democrat or a Republican, and he is not really wanted by either side.

That being said, he has been supporting some of the newer wave of politicians with plenty of ideas. And sure, out of 1000 ideas, a lot of them are either too idealistic or simply silly, but there are many others that could actually have a genuinely positive impact built into them.

I think the biggest issue worldwide, not just in the USA, is that we are kind of fucked... and we cannot really fix it. So the real question is whether you are willing to look toward a future where someone later might have a better life and more opportunities than you. I feel like most people nowadays just do not care about that. If it does not help them directly, or in a way they can realistically see within a short amount of time, they simply dismiss the idea completely.

Orangeman wont be in power forever, but just because he is right now it doesn't mean there is no point of trying to do things FOR THE FUTURE.

[u/somewherein72]

We should have some ownership over it since it's using our inputs and creations to exist and depends on our continued input to exist.

[u/Hewfe]

This man could have been president…

[u/thriverebel]

Trump agrees.

[u/sambull → u/thriverebel]

he did get 10% of Intel.. seems like it's on the table for them

[u/CiDevant → u/thriverebel]

I mean they're both populist at the end of the day.

[u/boogermike → u/thriverebel]

I was here to post this. It seems very Trumpian.

I love Bernie, and think he is generally right, but this seems a bit weird

[u/GiveMeThePinecone → u/boogermike]

Do you even know what bernie’s positions are and why he advocates for what he does? How is it weird that he advocates for some things that Trump also does? They are both populists, lol. Nationalization of industries that are critical, or will become critical would be a good thing.

[u/ranger910 → u/boogermike]

They're both populists

[u/VotingIsKewl]

If they're going to steal data from the public then yeah have the public own them.

[u/LeRoyRouge]

Agreed, it uses all of human history and knowledge for training, meaning it belongs to everyone.

[u/AverageJoe-707]

And when the AI bubble bursts the our economy will burst with it.

[u/TankiesAreWeird]

I don't want the government to buy AI companies or spend tax dollars on a bailout.

At some point the play by these people will be to get the government and retirement funds to hold the bag.

If they break capitalism the investment or the lack of one won't really matter.

[u/Xaraxa]

This should also happen every time the American government uses taxpayer money to bail out businesses and banks "too big to fail".

[u/loogie97]

These AI firms are hemorrhaging money right now. There is going to be. Massive raft of bankruptcies in the AI space and the economic impact is going to be catastrophic.

Having the us government holding the bag in that situation would be worse than owning it.

[u/iperblaster]

Ah yes, the government is now 50per cent responsible for all the failures of AI..

[u/BoilzBlisterzBurnz]

Who's knowledge is AI repurposing and giving back to us? Certainly not the creators of AI. It's the people's. And the resources of the land they're harming with their monolithic data centers? The people's. We want a slice of that big money pie.

[u/mattgorecki]

I'm pushing for 100% shutdown of AI companies.

[u/didntwant2log1n]

I’d rather have water, the land, the trees, the wildlife. Get rid of AI

[u/yourMommaKnow]

50% of 0 is still 0

[u/MyFirstCarWasA_Vega]

We SHOULD own at least half of SpaceX already since we paid for it.

Bernie, the Magans will hate you taking money out of the poor billionaire's hands and turning it over to people who will simply go out and spend it and drive the economy even higher. Yeah, they do not want that!

[u/Solkre]

Don't put my tax dollars into this ponzi scheme, or bail them out when it pops.

Tax them when they replace people, and get us towards UBI.

[u/rddman]

As much as i appreciate Sanders, he has been bamboozled by AI proponents. Why would we want to own something that costs a 100 times more than its revenue?

[u/JustApricot798]

There has to be something figured out. Right now! I mean think about it, Anthropic right now could target any SaaS, throw everyone at it for a few weeks and have a bigger and possibly better alternative to it.

Just like the AI itself, there has to be strict guardrails for these companies. That doesn't mean it's a corporate/government only partnership I think the global population needs a vote here.

[u/ItsColeOnReddit]

Yeah buy them at the height of their valuation and payoff all the investments trapped in a bubble. Then when the businesses are upside down put even more tax money in. Genius

[u/SignificanceJust972]

They are taking public resources after all

[u/Jedbo75]

YES. We demand this. No socialized cost without socialized profits!

[u/Element75_]

Normally I’m opposed to socialist bullshit like this, but the reality is that the AI companies’s value was built on the outright theft of public work. Every AI company is embroiled in at least one lawsuit over stealing. None of them have remotely any ethics.

I don’t know if this is the “right” way to resolve that issue, but it certainly is a way. At the very least it’s a start of a conversation that needs to happen.

[u/AlarmingTurnover → u/Element75_]

That stolen work isn't all American. It's from people across the globe and these AI systems are used across the globe. Why should the American government be the ones to have half ownership of it? 

[u/KidKarez]

Bernie I'm a fan but that is absolutely retarded

[u/W2WageSlave]

Socialism-lite? We're only going to seize half of the means of production!

[u/MystikSpiralx]

They are already forcing us to pay for THEIR electricity. What do we have to show for it? Nothing except slimmer bank accounts and the privilege of paying for a subscription to the services we are subsidizing.

[u/chitownphishead]

I don't take economic advice from anyone that never held a real job and got kicked out of a commune for being too lazy

[u/UseYourIndoorVoice]

When "too big to fail" isn't moving fast enough so you want to get the majority personally involved.

[u/Crenorz]

wow. Bernie wants tax payer dollars to fund the bubble that will be what they fund?

ouch.

NOT to say AI is a joke / not worth it. BUT whatever the government spends its money on - will be. And it will be a TON of money wasted.

[u/EasyBoard9971 → u/Crenorz]

his argument is that the equity could be taken since it’s the people’s data, would not be a funded scheme

[u/-GhostInTheMachine_]

I will soon be introducing a bill to give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America.This would guarantee that the trillions created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us (...)

The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence. Our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations.

Not sure that's the exact way to implement it, but he has a point.

[u/dhessi]

The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence.

True! But that's why we need to embrace open-source and open-weight AI.

A sovereign wealth fund will just lead to regulatory capture. Instead of placing guardrails on these private companies, we would be cementing their power.

[u/ThinckUtopian]

Why didn't the government take stakes in the banks and corporations they bail out? Same thing for the farms?

The government could also take the proceeds from this proposed nationalization of AI companies, and operate as a venture capital fund. There are many people that are looking for funding for startups which is the wealth engine of this country now. Access to more capital would lead to seeding the next Anthropic or Google. The more tech startups created, the better it is for the health of our economy long-term.

[u/Regalme]

Tiktok got bought by the gov essentially so everyone thinking theyre smart can shut up now 

[u/SunDense1457]

This is the way

[u/Additional_Odd-job]

Taxation is probably far more effective at generating ring fenced money immediately to use for retraining and extended unemployment benefits (not on profits but on token usage like high frequency trading). But I agree we need to do something here for people. It’s like social media, oil companies and polluting enterprises. Enormous profits at the people’s / societies expense. Notable taxation on those companies especially to invest in mitigating the ill effects of their “product”.

[u/BooRadleysFriend]

As long as corporations have more “Speech” than the public, this won’t happen

[u/skyhausmann]

Doesn't this just leave us still holding the bag when the AI bubble bursts? How about we cancel AI instead?

[u/fridder]

It at least forces the conversation. These big LLMs ripped off the entire internet, only fair they give us a slice