Bernie Sanders Wants You to Own Half the Profits from AI

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2:50From Wired, this is the big interview where we get to know the people beyond the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's Global Editorial Director. And I have really been looking forward to this next interview. My guest today is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who honestly has a lot in common with us at Wired. Tech executives seem to hate us, and Elon Musk has accused both of us, on X, of being dead. It turns out that tech leaders like critical coverage about as much as they like being taxed. When so many other politicians are still getting their bearings, Senator Sanders has taken a leading stance on regulating artificial intelligence.

3:30In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, he argues for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that will give the American public a stake in AI. I'm quoting here. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity. Earlier this spring, Sanders and his frequent collaborator, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, introduced legislation that would place a moratorium on building data centers until safeguards on AI are put in place. I'm so pleased now to welcome Senator Bernie Sanders to the big interview to talk about his work on AI. We are, in fact, at the Senator's campaign office in Washington, D.C.

4:06Senator Sanders, thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. Wonderful. Well, I want to jump right in. I want to start by talking about the Sovereign Wealth Fund that you have proposed in the context of AI. I know you've made some details about this public. tell us how it would work all right i'm going to get to that get to it one second okay i want to back it up okay and the concerns that i have what drove me to push for a moratorium on data centers and the sovereign wealth fund is the fact that is i think most people know ai is being pushed by the wealthiest people in the world and people like musk and bezos and zuckerberg and those type of guys.

4:44And they could care less about the needs of ordinary people. So AI is the most consequential transformational technology in the history of humanity. And it's being pushed by guys who could care less, just want to get richer and more powerful. That has got to stop. And what has distressed me very much and why I got involved in this issue is it looked all around me in Congress. You would think that with such a transformational technology going to impact every aspect of my like three massive debates right this committee would be doing oh my god we got this legislation what are we gonna zero nothing as of this state as of today there's not been one significant piece of legislation dealing with ar okay so what do we do we did two things number one we said wait a minute you're building these data centers all over the country and in fact all over the world they're having a very negative impact on local environments on electric costs etc slow it down Let's take a moratorium unless we start getting guidelines and legislation to protect ordinary people.

5:47Second of all, we propose a sovereign, AI sovereign wealth fund. All right, what does that do? It does two things. First of all, most importantly, it says that on an issue of such transformational impact, you can't let a handful of billionaires determine the future of humanity. the public has got to own half of these industries, meaning that half of the members of the board will be representatives of the public. And what's important there is if there are ideas and proposals that will lead, or technology that will lead to massive unemployment or endanger the well-being of kids or privacy rights, et cetera, et cetera, you are going to have half of that board say, Sorry, bad idea.

6:32You can't do it. And the second part of it is, as AI, as I expect, becomes more and more lucrative, these guys make more and more money, that money should not just go to a handful of very wealthy people. What is the foundation of AI? What is it based on? It's based on human knowledge and human work. You've written a book, they got it. You've written a poem, you've written some scientific work. You've written for Wired, they have that too? That's right. Exactly. And you have, what compensation did you get for that? Our writers and our company and our publication received$0. $0. And I wrote$5. But the point is, that is the foundation of AI.

7:14So the public should benefit from that financially as well. So what we are saying is that half of the increase in revenue, in wealth that is created by AI should go to the people as well. And these are public companies paying into this sovereign wealth fund? Right. The Microsofts, the Googles? Any company of$200 million or more. Got it. The larger ones. Now, you talked a few minutes ago about lawmakers, about members of Congress. The absence of urgency that you have seen there, I would argue there has been a consistent absence of urgency among politicians around technology for many, many decades.

7:53It's not only technology. It's a lot of other things. A lot of other things, but I'm very focused on technology. What kind of buy-in do you think exists now for the idea of a sovereign wealth fund? And what needs to happen for it to become a reality in this country? Look, everything is political. And we start off, the reason that I like your term, sense of urgency, there is no sense of urgency is you got, you're a member of Congress and you say, you don't want to talk to some constituents. I'm worried about the impact on children's mental health. I'm worried about jobs. You know what? I think we should do something.

8:32You know what happens when you're running for office? You know what happens the next day? You got millions of dollars in 30-second ads coming out against you. So when you talk about lack of urgency, it's not that members of Congress are stupid. They are not, by and large. It is that they are frightened. You want to be in power because you want to get reelected. In fact, there was a member that went out, I think, on the Democratic side and said, it might be a good idea to stay away from that issue. Don't talk about it. Because if you start talking about it, you come up with logical ideas as to how we go forward, the AI industry is going to go after you.

9:08They're going to spend, in this midterm election, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. They got all the money in the room. All right. So that is why there is no sense of urgency. And that is why we We need fundamental campaign finance reform, get rid of Citizens United, get rid of Super Box. So a lot needs to happen to get us there. I mean, I interviewed Alex Boras, who obviously has a big day today. We're talking the day of the New York primaries. You know, there were millions and millions and millions of dollars spent to target his candidacy for exactly the reason that you're citing.

9:39In the context of technology, though, and lawmakers, I don't think they're stupid, at least most of them. I think most of them are smart. Do you think that they understand the technology that they ought to be overseeing, ideally regulated in some way? I mean, this is so big that I think members grasp onto certain elements of it. For example, I would say that many members are worried about the impact on children. You know, we have heard these horrible stories of kids committing suicide at the advice of bots and so forth. And, you know, people emotionally respond to that, the idea that we have kids spending so much time with their, quote-unquote, bot companions.

10:24I think people sense that. There is some discussion, but not a whole lot, on the impact that AI will have on jobs. all right and you know some people are saying well you know every technology you know we don't have too many blacksmiths anymore too many elevator operators the world changes bernie you know it's going to change again yeah we're going to lose jobs but we're going to create a whole lot of new jobs right well i'm not so sure that that's the case yeah and the truth is nobody knows exactly what is going to happen but i think there has certainly you know if i mean just give you one example of it.

11:05There are six, seven, eight million people who drive trucks, cabs, Uber, Lyft, et cetera, right? You have been, no doubt, in driverless vehicles. I've been in three or four. Yeah, I've been in one too. What'd you think? Right up. They work very, very well. They do. Right now in Texas, you're at 18 wheelers that are driverless running down the road. All right. So what happens? Let's just say that that technology expands to cities, states, all over the country. What happens to the 50-year-old guys who are now driving the truck? Do you think they're going to go? What jobs are out there? Do you think they're going to go into computer coding?

11:46I don't think so. Those jobs are gone, et cetera, et cetera. Has anyone taken a really hard look at that? And I'll tell you something, it's even deeper than job loss. you are transforming our relationships with each other who we are as human beings i mean this is really you know musk who i lies a lot and there's a good sales who lies a lot lies musk on this we agree he lies a great day and he's a good salesman you know he does what he does but you know musk you know is the wealthiest most powerful guy in the world he says oh work will be obsolete ai and robotics will do everything better than you can do it Now, is that half true?

12:28Probably, I don't know. If that is true, half true, yeah. So what are you going to do? What happens to your life? What's your purpose in life? Your kids, what, are going to be watching Musk videos all day? And you're going to be sitting home about getting a check from who? We don't quite know, because if you're not working, you're not paying taxes. If you're not paying taxes, Social Security, Medicaid doesn't exist. Who's going to be giving you the check? Are you thinking many of my colleagues in Congress ask that question? I don't think so. No. Privacy issues? Every time you're on the net, somebody's going to know something about you.

13:08Go to the doctor, prescription drugs you use, your bank accounts. That will become accessible to somebody. I'll tell you something else. Just as a politician. It's happened to me. I don't know if it's happened to you. You know, they are, Deep fakes are getting very, very sophisticated. So somebody could put words into your mouth, have you talking, take you right off the show, put different words in your mouth, and most people won't know the difference. I actually had a deep fake of myself created just to see what was possible. And then I presented it to the entire company, Condé Nast, which owns Wired.

13:42It was uncanny. It was very funny. Was it effective? Oh, yeah. Everybody thought it was me, and then I walked out on stage. and it was me twice but obviously that taken to nefarious ends is a very scary we're saying already it's already beginning you may uh this guy massey you remember in kentucky they had a deep fake of him walking with a hotel room into a hotel room with two women yeah yeah and it looked reasonably realistic so how do you deal with that you are very much convinced that this is a transformational technology and and i agree with you i'm curious though what has informed that point of view?

14:20Has your point of view on AI changed in recent years? And if so, where did that come from? Was there a moment? Was there a conversation? How did you get to where you are now in terms of how you think about it? Yeah. My mind works in weird ways, you know. And what really got me going is what I mentioned a moment ago is it's like, oh, there's an elephant in the room. You don't notice the elephant is in the room? I mean, everyone can argue how transformative what the timeline is, right? Nobody knows the answer to that. It is. No one denies that it's transformed. And I'm a member of the United States Senate.

14:55So I'm going around, hey, anyone talking about it, thinking about it? No discussion at all. That got me going. And then I started talking, you know, to people like Jeffrey Hinton. Okay, sure. You know Hinton? Yeah, yeah. And he's a Nobel Prize winner in physics. Yep. We did a town meeting last year at Georgetown. And he says that as AI becomes smarter than human beings, there is a, I don't know what the words, I don't want to put words into his mouth, but it's at least a strong possibility that it will become independent of human control with possible calamitous results. Now, you've got a Nobel Prize who happens to be one of the godfathers of AI and others talking about that.

15:35You might think that, you know, whether it's a 5 % likelihood or 3%, 8%, we are talking about the future of the entire human race, that somebody might stand up and say, excuse me, maybe we should do something. Not happening. So I got into this thing because I read, talk to people. And what stunned me is the, to quote you, the lack of urgency that I was seeing. And so here you are trying to create. Here I am. Somebody who's a total nerd. I mean, I shouldn't say a nerd. I'm an anti-nerd. I don't know anything about this technology. As I say often, I have a hard time dealing with TV in the house.

16:19But somebody has got to, you know, it is so transformational in every aspect of our lives. We've got to start talking about it. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

16:41I think one of the major frustrations among the American people, I don't speak for all of them, but I speak to many of them in our reporting, is the feeling that AI is being foisted on them, right? That it is being presented to them as inevitability by the oligarchs, by the Musks, by the Sam Altmans, you name them. And that they don't have agency and that they don't have control in that. How do you respond to that? I think you're exactly right. We are seeing the response in, I think, a couple of ways. Number one, I think a year ago, you and I would probably not have perceived the kind of grassroots opposition to data centers.

17:27And one way, the immediate concern is I don't want my electric rates to go up. I hate the noise. I don't like where it's looking. It's, you know, destroy our local environment. True. But I think in addition to that, people are saying, my God, what are we building here? Is that monstrosity down the road going to take my kid's ability for my kid to have a job? And your point is exactly right. And that's somebody who has taken on the oligarchs more than maybe anybody else in the Congress. I see these guys with unbelievable wealth and power pushing this thing through. Somehow or another, we can't guarantee health care to all people.

18:07We can't get more doctors and nurses and do whatever the other major country does. It is impossible. but you can build hundreds of data centers and transform humanity in a question of a few years? That you can do. Why? Because when you guarantee healthcare, this gets really deep stuff. I mean, when you guarantee healthcare to all people, what does that mean? It means that all people have a better life. You can do a better education. Should we have the best educational system? Child care. Can we do it? Yeah, we can do it. But that is not Mr. Musk's goal. They have a whole different set of mentalities.

18:40are really smart and they're very aggressive and they're effective business people and they want to just push it through. This is their world that they're creating. And the average person is sitting there and saying, what is this world going to do to me and to my children and to the environment? But they're not because you have, getting back to the border issue of the corrupt political system, their voices are not being heard because money dominates what goes on here in Washington. And I would argue that data centers are a symbol of that very much to people. There's the environmental piece. There's the noise.

19:15There's the community aspect. But in our observation and in our reporting, it is much more a symbol of that lack of agency. Does that resonate? Is that what you hear when you talk to Americans? Look, here's the story. This is what happens. You have some of the wealthiest corporations, most powerful corporations with lawyers and politicians and everybody else coming into a small town, talking to the town board of selectment, right? Five people who volunteered their time were taking on the most powerful institutions in the world who have unbelievable amounts of money, who get them to sign these disclosure, you know, these non-disclosure agreements so people don't even know what's going on in their own town.

19:56And I think people see the contrast between wealth and power and their own little community, and they're getting angry. So in your view, what does responsible data center rollout look like? I think you need a more time to just answer the questions that you've asked. We need to have. I know it sounds like a radical idea. All right. How should AI be used to improve our life? What do you guys think? All right. Does it do some good things in health care? Can it help doctors make better diagnoses, better prescriptions? Absolutely. What about if we wipe out manufacturing jobs in America? You think that's a good idea?

20:33No, Bernie, I don't think that's a good idea. Should your kid get hooked up with an AI bot? No, Bernie, that's dangerous. I'm scared about that. What about having your privacy completely invaded? Is that a good idea? No, I treasure my privacy. All right, how in the face of AI do we deal with all of those issues? So if you say to people, guess what? You're working 50 hours a week now, 40 hours a week. We're going to lower your work week to 20, 30 hours, and you're going to get the same pay. How's that? Hey, I'm in for that. All right? I mean, I'm in for that. Yeah. Well, so does everybody else.

21:09I do really like working, but point taken. We'll allow you to work longer hours. Thank you. All right. But if AI is going to create wealth, should that wealth benefit you and everybody else and my grandchildren or just Mr. Musk and his friends? I think 90 % of the people are on our side and answering that question. Now, I know you don't spend much time with the musks of the world. I don't. You don't. But you did spend some time with Sam Altman recently. I think you spent an hour together talking in particular about the Sovereign Wealth Fund proposal. You said Altman was, quote, not enthusiastic about the idea.

21:45You also characterized him as a good politician. Yeah. What were your impressions of him when you met? He's a smart guy. Smart guy? Yeah, very smart guy. and he's very personable and I think he's a good salesman. That's what he does. And I think what he understands and he's, I think, a good politician as well. And he comes to Washington. He sees, these are smart guys. They see the, you know, they were trying to tell us a couple of years ago, oh, AI is so great. It's so wonderful. Everybody's got a benefit. And now they're saying people increasingly do not believe that. So you're sitting there, you're Sam, and some of these guys, well, what's your response?

22:21I said, well, what am I going to do? I got to give the American people something. Guess what? We're going to give you 5 % of the benefits of the thing. We're nice guys. Just the goodness of our own heart. So they're going to have to figure out how they can sell their product and their transformation to the American people. And that's one way. And Trump is the same way. You know, I don't believe a word that Trump says. But, you know, he is, after I made that announcement, he came on. Oh, it's an interesting idea. He did, yeah. Is there a world where the Altmans of the world, the tech companies, get there before lawmakers, where they realize that they have such a serious optics problem that they need to do more than they're doing to appease the American public?

23:04I think you see that happening, how far we'll go. But the issue is not just, okay, you're forcing me. I'm going to give you a couple of thousand dollars a year. You got it. The issue is power. And they want to keep that. That's what I think they want. Money is one thing. Power is another one. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about power. I mean, you have been, as you say, taking on the oligarchs for a very long time. Wired in this era calls them oligarchs too. We are very concerned about the amount of power that these executives wields over the country, over the world, and the amount of money and leverage that they have over Washington.

23:42How do you hold that amount of wealth to account? You recently described Elon Musk achieving trillionaire status as a, quote, call to action. Can any government hold a trillionaire to account? Well, you're asking a very profound question. I mean, essentially, you're saying is the cat out of the bag already. Trillionaire. I mean, that is a stunning amount of wealth. It is. And is Mr. Musk more powerful and more influential in the United States Congress? I don't know. I mean, I haven't studied it. He may well be single-handedly. Can these people be held accountable? I mean, just as one example using Musk, and he's certainly not the only one, he spent some$290 million, I think, to elect Trump.

24:29He did. Okay. So when you have, and it's not just him, you've got all these zillionaires. I mentioned the AI super PACs. You mentioned Boros in New York City, but it's not just there. It's all over the country. Can we stop? I think you can, but it almost calls up a revolutionary situation, to tell you the truth, not to get you too nervous. It means, you know, what I have seen is someone who's traveled all over the country. I have seen wonderful, just beautiful. People say, Bernie, you're old. How do you get inspired? How do you keep going? And I have seen all over this country, in New York, in Vermont, California, all over this country, beautiful, beautiful young people who really want to save this country.

25:12And they're getting involved politically. We're seeing trade unionists. There's a guy, just as an example, one example. A guy came to a rally of mine in Montana. He's a trade union guy. He came to a rally. He spoke about problems the workers were having. You ended up running for Congress and he won against an establishment opponent. We're seeing that. We're seeing grass. But it's going to take a lot, a lot, a lot of work. So the answer to your question is a political answer. It is these guys have unbelievable wealth. They own much of the media. They own much of the political system. They own the economy.

25:52Can we mobilize people at the grassroots level, buy the millions to stand up to them? Well, I don't know the answer to them, but I'm trying. That's exactly what I'm trying. And what does that revolution look like? Is that organizing? Is it voting? Is it something else? It is for a start. Voting is very, very important. But it is not just voting. I mean, you're seeing, as one example, data centers being stopped, not by votes, by people mobilizing against them. And I think the other thing that we really have got to do in this moment is to, I mean, Trump and Musk and Zuckerberg and these guys, they have a vision for the country.