WASHINGTON: Artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world. It will profoundly affect the life of every man, woman and child in our country. It will bring — and is already bringing — unimaginable changes to our economy, our democracy, our emotional well-being, our environment, and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that as AI becomes smarter than humans it could eventually function independently, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The question, then, is not whether AI will change the world. It will. The question is: Who will own and control that future? Who will benefit from it, and who will be hurt by it? Will AI be used to make life better for working families? Will it enrich our quality of life? Will it help us eliminate poverty, extend life expectancies, and solve the climate crisis? Or 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 is the choice before us.
Let us be clear. Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative AI tools didn’t just pop into Sam Altman’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination. AI is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations. That is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders. According to Altman, the head of OpenAI, AI models were trained on our “collective experience, knowledge” and “learnings of humanity.”
For the most part, tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their AI models without permission, without acknowledgment, without compensation. In other words, the creative work of millions of people — writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists and ordinary citizens — has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world. It’s time for us to reclaim it.
Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity.
That is why I will soon be introducing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies by creating a sovereign wealth fund through a onetime 50 per cent tax — not on the profits, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock.
If passed, this legislation would do two crucial things. First, it would give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The federal government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company’s board, to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them.
Second, this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us. If the big AI companies continue to grow as rapidly as many analysts expect, then the value of the sovereign wealth fund will grow as well — and the benefits to the American people will grow along with it.
This is not an original idea. It has been proposed by scholars, and endorsed by some of the leading AI companies in America. OpenAI, for example, recently proposed creating a “public wealth fund that provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.” Anthropic, led by Dario Amodei, similarly proposed the creation of “national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in AI”. Musk wrote, “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.”
Sovereign wealth funds exist all over the world to ensure that ordinary people benefit from national wealth. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the largest in the world, was funded from the country’s oil wealth and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Instead of a few oil executives pocketing all the benefits of this national resource, Norway made the decision that this wealth should be used to improve life for all of its people.
This concept has already been put into practice right here at home. Fifty years ago, Alaska created a sovereign wealth fund from the its oil revenues. For decades, it has paid annual dividends directly to Alaskans. Moreover, public pension funds in states already hold hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock of companies throughout America. Even President Trump, in an executive order, has proposed establishing an American sovereign wealth fund.
To start, the billions, if not trillions, of dollars generated by this fund would provide direct payments to the American people. And as the fund generates more and more wealth, the proceeds would be used to ensure that every man, woman and child in our country has a decent and dignified standard of living, including health care, education and housing.
Needless to say, I recognise that for the government to have a major stake in a company, particularly one for which AI is only part of its business, is complicated. But the principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. AI is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity and labour of mankind.
The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximise their power and profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities and the American people. It’s our future. We must decide it.