When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) first started his war on artificial intelligence and robotics, his excuse was that the technologies would destroy jobs of the working class at the behest of the “oligarchs,” which is to say billionaire entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Sam Altman. He wanted to put a stop to the technology, or at least slow it down.
However, Sanders has now altered course and decided that artificial intelligence can be a good thing, if it is owned and taxed, at least in part, by the government. He has taken to X, the social media platform owned by Musk, to explain his proposal and to link to a New York Times op-ed laying it out.
Recommended Stories
Sanders has introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. The legislation would seize one-half of the stock in every AI company and place it under the control of a sovereign wealth fund, similar to the one Norway uses to allocate the profits of that country’s North Sea oil fields.
IF THE ADMINISTRATION PANICS AT EVERY AI ADVANCE, IT DOESN’T HAVE A POLICY
Old and busted: Seize the means of production!
New hotness: Seize the means of information!
Sanders said his proposal would do two things.
First, it would give the government veto power over decisions by AI companies that, in Sanders’s judgment, would be harmful to the working class. What would be harmful would be left to the judgment of government apparatchiks.
Second, the profits that the government would garner from owning half of AI companies would be used, not to pay down the national debt, but to finance Sanders’s pet projects, everything from Medicare for All to the Green New Deal.
AI, unfettered by government control, could benefit all humankind. AI will destroy some jobs but will create far more of them. The industrial revolution of the 19th century and the computer revolution of the 20th century had similar effects.
Scientific and medical discoveries will be accelerated. Education will become more personalized, improving the lot of students and teachers alike. Business will become more efficient and nimbler. Dangerous jobs, such as first responders and warfighters, will become less dangerous.
None of those good things will happen if the government’s nose is allowed inside the tent of AI. The heavy hand of regulation and government control will stifle all of the innovations that the technologies promise.
Even more important, do we really trust the government to have control over information, which is what feeds AI systems and makes them run? One of the features of tyrannies has been control of information, whether traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV, and radio, or the newer sources, such as social media. Democracy thrives on access to accurate information. Tyrannies, whether they be Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Islamic Iran, or Sanders’s collectivist utopia, thrive on the control and stifling of information.
We should no more favor government control of AI than we should favor control of the media, traditional or internet. It can only lead to abuse and a lack of transparency.
The free market assures that AI will be free of dishonesty and deceit. The reason is that customers will not use AI systems that are not absolutely truthful and free of agenda-driven results.
Science fiction has stirred fears of AI by depicting the possibility that they would become sentient and go rogue. In the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project, an AI system takes over the world through control of nuclear weapons. In the Terminator movies, AI decides to wipe out the human species.
No one, as far as can be determined, has depicted a future in which unscrupulous politicians such as Sanders propose to seize control of AI systems to advance their own agendas. The past behavior of governments suggests that a trust issue exists for that scenario.
NASA ROLLED OUT PLANS FOR THREE UNMANNED MOON BASE MISSIONS BY END OF 2026. WHAT TO KNOW
Humans should always be in the loop where the operation of AI systems is concerned. But Sanders, whose lust for power has been evident throughout his political career, should not be among them.
The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act should be consigned to the same dustbin of history as every other bad idea put forward by Sanders and his fellow “democratic socialists.” The Soviet Union fell, and the welfare states of Europe are tottering for a reason. Let not the same affliction come to the United States.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration titled Why Is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
