“Will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of billionaires who have promoted and developed AI, with virtually no democratic input, who stand to become even richer and more powerful than they are today?” That was the question Bernie Sanders posed in the New York Times last week – a challenge that Nathan E Sanders and Bruce Schneier, authors of Rewiring Democracy, called “one of the most potent questions facing global democracy today”. But while they agreed with the senator that the concentration of power among tech oligarchs is the most urgent risk posed by AI, they reached a “vastly different conclusion” on what to do about it.
Sanders proposed creating a US sovereign wealth fund by taking 50% stock in AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI, arguing it would give the government “the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company’s board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens” and return “trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI” to the public. The Guardian commentators, however, favour energy taxation as “a straightforward way to make AI companies pay for the social disruption of their technologies”, while not outright opposing stock ownership.
“Bernie Sanders proposes public AI stock ownership while Trump pushes growth via executive orders and potential stakes.”
Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is pursuing a very different strategy. Last week he issued a watered-down executive order on AI model review and another demanding the US military accelerate AI adoption. Trump also said his administration would “look into” taking financial stakes in leading AI companies. Sam Altman has reportedly participated in discussions with senior White House officials. “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. We’ll look into that,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
The order on model review sought but did not mandate a 30-day pre-release review. Trump had postponed signing it in late May, telling reporters: “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna get in the way of that lead.” The previous version reportedly would have enforced stricter standards. His second order directed the defence department to accelerate AI adoption, particularly for national cybersecurity.
Meanwhile, Anthropic – one of the companies Sanders would target – has advocated for a “pause” on AI advancement, just days after filing to go public on the US stock market, a move that underscores the contradictions at the heart of the AI safety debate.