Bernie Sanders: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies - By Scott Baker

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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After reading this, our conclusion is inescapable: Socialists are dumb. Stupid, dim, cognitively impaired, idiotic. Period. 

Socialist Bernie thinks that the government should own 50% of AI companies, so he intends to simply take it. That's right, he wants the government to just help themselves. On what basis? He wants the government to redistribute the profits. And the author of the article admires him.

Truly dumb.

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Today, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Bernie Sanders, who remains one of the most forward-looking politicians in office, despite being one of the oldest. (Translation: Progressive, as in the progression of society toward the full government confiscation of private wealth as Socialism is installed.)

The senator from Vermont writes:

Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, (Um. Who exactly has created or invented anything apart from existing human knowledge? Every new invention or innovation is built on what is known. 

Socialist Bernie is fabricating a government ownership claim on something of value with the vapid excuse that it relies on prior knowledge and prior achievements. 

He implies, and the author will later confirm, that AI technology is essentially stolen from the whole of humanity, justifying government confiscation.

Oh, and punish the eeeevil rich.) 

the wealth it generates must benefit humanity. (Why? Notice the logical leap. AI was created by people who relied on the achievements of others, which apparently is sufficient to compel government to take control of it, with the weak excuse that this will somehow benefit humanity.) 

Not just Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman, Dario Amodei and other moguls whose companies are positioned to dominate the industry. Not just venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or money managers on Wall Street who undoubtedly see A.I. as the next great wealth-extracting machine. (Rich people making money. Something we just can't permit.)

That is why I will soon be introducing the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This lggislation (sic) would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies in our country. (No, it would give government the power to arbitrarily seize 50% ownership of company stock.) 

How? It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax -- not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock. (Not content with taxing profit, Socialist Bernie wants a new tax that will transfer ownership. This is a seizure. Completely arbitrary. He wants Congress to create a law that gives itself permission to simply take 50% of the stock of these companies.  "See, it's legal. We passed a law." 

Will the tax be used to fund the necessary functions of government? Nope. Will it be used to create a new program to help the poor, or bolster Social Security, or Medicare? Nope. Will it be used to reduce the national debt? Nope.

How will this "Sovereign Wealth Fund" be constituted? How will its assets be distributed? Will it even be used for what Socialist Bernie tells us is its stated purpose? Nope. 

Socialist Bernie not concerned with the details. He's simply pushing a hot button for the faithful He doesn't care what effect the grab will have on share prices. He has no interest in how the companies would be able to continue operate when half of it is tied up in government. It is irrelevant to him as to how these companies would be able to continue produce, innovate, or create. 

 

And what about DEI, fairness, living wages, the right to housing, and every other Leftist fever dream? Surely these can't be far behind. 

This all represents the death knell of an entire industry. Eventually, the entire economy.)  

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. (By "public" he means government officials, likely appointed bureaucrats. The "public" will certainly have no say in this.) 

No longer would the future of A.I. and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. (Instead it will be dictated by a handful of government bureaucrats

This is boilerpate Socialist agitprop, an excuse to take over the entire economy, not just AI.) 

The federal government would have the power, (See? Not the public...) 

through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company's goard, (sic) to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them. (50% ownership is not a controlling interest. Oh. Never mind. Socialist Bernie surely won't stop at 50%.)

Second, this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by A.I. are used to improve the lives of all of us -- (How, exactly? How do we benefit? Oh, never mind. We forgot, the details don't matter. 

And why should "all of us" receive any benefit at all from someone else's hard work?) 

not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer. (Why Socialist Bernie thinks this is any of his business is a mystery.) 

If the big A.I. 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 nothing more than a bookkeeping entry where this pile of dough will be tallied. It's a fiction, of course, just the the Social Security Trust Fund.)

This is a great idea. (Ok, we're back to the author's commentary. See? Stupid.)

The collective IP (Intellectual Property.) 

of the world, or at least the America people & its greatest thinkers, writers, artists, media, etc. are our culture and heritage. (The IP is not collective. It doesn't belong to the world or America, it belongs to those who created it.

And by the way, Socialists have no concern at all about our culture and heritage.)

They can't be absorbed & molded without compensation. (But the great thinkers who created AI, well, what they created should be seized.

By the way, if peoples' IP is being taken without compensation it is a violation of existing law. And, how exactly would this problem be fixed by seizing half an entire industry...without compensation?)

It's also against the Constitution, (A document the Left seeks to eliminate in pursuit of Socialism.)

which allows for copyright and patents (robots in the real world could violate patent rights, but A.I. alone can violate copyrights). (Copyrights are the government recognition of ownership claims. Someone creates and owns something. Again, this runs counter to the central principle of Socialism, the government ownership of property.

So let's quote the section of the Constitution.

Article one, Section 8, clause 8 reads: 

The Congress shall have Power...

...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...

It's a mystery how this seizure of property will secure the property of authors and inventors.

The author is doing his best to camouflage what's really intended. He's trying make it seem legal, constitutional, and just. It's actually none of those things.)

And the time may be ripe now. A.I. companies are being sued on a number of fronts, including by the NY Times. And they are starting to lose, or starting to make multi-billion dollar settlements because they think the MIGHT lose. (??? Aren't these AI companies about to make a boatload of money? Why is it good they are getting sued? How does this add to the author's argument?)

A new paradigm law like this would be a way to both promote the new industry and also guarantee that the creators of the source material of the knowledge and human labor empowering it receive their just rewards. (In a mechanism that hasn't been explained. The author is just making bare assertions.

So here's the deal: The tax is ostensibly going to prevent the violation of the ownership rights of people by taking ownership away from AI companies. Protect ownership rights by violating ownership rights.)

What's the alternative? If creators and the public at large don't receive benefit, they will go out of business (If ownership rights are being violated, that is remedied by existing laws.)

and A.I. will increasingly rely on other A.I. - already happening - and the final result will be diluted and degraded, like a copy of a copy, until there's nothing but inaccurate A.I. slop that no one even has the expertise anymore to counter. (So goes this valuable industry. Apparently government ownership will prevent this from happening. Somehow.)

That's not a world any of us should aspire to, not even the billionaires. (The author closes with a flourish of ignorance.)