Bernie Sanders unveils $7T plan to give Americans control of AI industry

Bernie Sanders unveils $7T plan to give Americans control of AI industry(arstechnica.com)

13 points by FinnLobsien 3 days ago | 10 comments

“financed through a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock of the largest AI companies”

Here's what bugs me: what guarantees that it stays a one-time tax? What guarantees that it is only on "the largest AI companies"? What keeps it from becoming "we'll take half of anything anybody has that we don't like"?

And what keeps me from becoming part of "anybody they don't like"?

smb06 3 days ago |

The mid-terms could really become about whether AI as a technology should be in the hands of the public/society or left to tech companies

verdverm 3 days ago | |

Prices, inflation, and jobs are still the top issues. Have been for several elections, Americans mostly vote based on how their wallet feels.

bxhz55 3 days ago | | |

AI has only recently entered collective unconconciousness. Politicians react to whatever is making people insecure. Thats how Immigration issues have toppled govts world wide.

voidmain 3 days ago | |

> In The Argument’s newest poll, fielded nationally among 3,008 registered voters between May 29 and June 3, 2026, over a quarter, 27%, of voters said it’s likely humanity would go extinct because of AI. At the same time, just 6% listed the technology as one of their two top issues — exactly one-quarter of voters think humanity could go extinct but don’t rank it as an important issue.

:-/

bigbadfeline 3 days ago |

Sanders' bailout plan for the AI bubble, of course the top models will still be partly or fully inaccessible to the taxpayers providing the bailout - this will be the final text of the law by the time (and if) this "plan" becomes law.

bxhz55 3 days ago | |

Taxpayers dont get access to nukes just because they fund it.

bigbadfeline 3 days ago | | |

"Information is nukes" is also a good excuse for getting rid of free speech. The "models" have no more information than what's already online or in whatever books they were trained on.

AI is nukes to be funded by the taxpayer is another intersecting take which follows from you comment. If that's the case, include them in the military budget, not in a plan sold as some kind of generous giveaway.

zhoBEENG 3 days ago |

So his plan is to just take what he wants from the people who built it? What the fuck. That’s not a plan. Why are these people incapable of making the world better on their own.

hlynurd 2 days ago | |

Do the people who build this technology control it, or the ones who finance it?

And should they?