Bernie Sanders Continues to Be Only Democrat(ish) Lawmaker Willing to Govern on AI - Gizmodo

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, has decided that the best way to handle frontier AI labs is to nationalise half of them. His proposed American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would force OpenAI, Anthropic, and similar outfits to hand over a 50% ownership stake to the government. Because nothing says 'responsible AI development' like making Uncle Sam your largest shareholder — just ask any defence contractor how well that oversight works.

Sanders frames this as a way to 'ensure the benefits of AI are shared by all Americans,' which is a lovely sentiment until you remember that the same government can barely regulate social media or secure its own networks. One can almost hear the lobbyists sharpening their pencils for the committee hearings.

Of course, the labs will fight this with every dollar their venture backers can muster. 'Public ownership' is a phrase that sends Silicon Valley into fits, and Sanders is not exactly the tech industry's favourite uncle. The real joke is that this proposal has roughly the same chance of passing as an AI model perfectly aligning with human values on the first try. Still, it's the only actual governance idea on the table — and that's the most depressing part of all.