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The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

sanders.senate.gov

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Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#41

Post by rayiner »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #9
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #5

Why half of AI and not half of Walmart & Exxon & Apple? Government spending is already ~40% of GDP. And what do we get with this half? A sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims. What benefit does that have for anyone else? You can't build a sovereign wealth fund if you're transferring all the money out. That's just mor…

Because AI companies basically took everything we ever wrote, drew, recorded, posted, or thought and turned it into a product with the power to lie, propagandize, and manipulate the public with zero oversight. Walmart is a parasite using welfare to subsidize their operations but they didn't tell a judge that they were immune to copyright because they stole just so much damn information.

“Took?” AI companies aren’t removing the information from the public domain. What happened to “information wants to be free?”

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#42

Post by macintux »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #16
baliex wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Let us be clear. Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative A.I. tools didn’t just pop into Sam Altman’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination. A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations.

And the ones spanning generations were completely fair game . The ones that were still under copyright are a different matter. (It has not, so far as I know, been legally decided, but it's probably going to depend on whether AI is a transformative use.)

> The ones that were still under copyright are a different matter.

Given the sheer volume of information posted to the Internet in the last 40-50 years, I'd wager that covers 80% or more of the relevant input data.

Old text is relatively scarce in the grand scheme of things.

But I have no real clue, just spitballing.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#44

Post by dylan604 »

fhdkweig wrote: post #35
fny wrote: post #22

> A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations I know many here would scoff at nationalizing a private company, but AI is a usurpation of human knowledge and quite literally at times. (Every AI company was embroiled in copyright lawsuits and lord knows what Qwen et al are up to.) In…

You can tax something without owning it. It is the owning part that bothers me. It implies that the government is going to shovel ridiculous amounts of money into these things and when the bubble finally pops We The People get nothing out of it.

That sounds like a brilliant idea if you're a board member of one of these companies.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#45

Post by fhdkweig »

feverzsj wrote: post #20

Only if it's AGI, which is astronomically impossible.

I don't think LLMs will be the path to AGI, but anything nature can already build (a human mind) is proven to be possible. After that, it is just a science and engineering problem to replicate.

There are those who believe that a human mind is somehow magic and a special exception to the laws of physics, but I am not one of those people.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#46

Post by _alternator_ »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #5

Why half of AI and not half of Walmart & Exxon & Apple? Government spending is already ~40% of GDP. And what do we get with this half? A sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims. What benefit does that have for anyone else? You can't build a sovereign wealth fund if you're transferring all the money out. That's just mor…

The focus on AI is just to capture some of the current zeitgeist. Socialists generally think that most large businesses be run for the public benefit in some form or another.

This is basically making that point with AI companies as their true influence is rapidly increasing. The rhetorical strategy here is to hook socialist ideas onto something people are already thinking about, a land-and-expand rhetorical strategy.

Personally I'm against the proposal, but the details are not the point because it's not going happen in this form. It's about changing minds first, then changing policy down the road.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#47

Post by trismus »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #14

Bernie Sanders. I mean, he's not always wrong, but he's, um, kind of enthusiastic about just taking stuff from those who have it, considerably more than the current understanding of private property (or even taxation) considers acceptable.

There were long ancestral lines of humans who were very very keen on not redistributing power for many generations.

They were called kings. Cutting their heads off was the best thing to happen to society, ever.

Take the long view. Our particular economic and ideological moment is not worth defending.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#48

Post by dylan604 »

gkoberger wrote: post #38

I don’t have an opinion on this specific proposal, but I am glad to hear a politician talking about the effects of AI. I feel like I’m going crazy sometimes. Over the next few years we will see the biggest change to employment our country has ever seen. Our entire financial structure is about to be upended, and not a single politician is talking about it. It’s so weird that all I think about is AI, yet not a single p…

> It’s so weird that all I think about is AI,

Maybe this is a place to start?

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#49

Post by nradov »

fny wrote: post #22

> A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations I know many here would scoff at nationalizing a private company, but AI is a usurpation of human knowledge and quite literally at times. (Every AI company was embroiled in copyright lawsuits and lord knows what Qwen et al are up to.) In…

Labor displacement is always coming. Every new technology eliminates some old occupations and creates new ones. LLMs aren't unique in that regard. We should have a safety net to support and retrain displaced workers regardless of the technology.

And let's please not have any lazy, low-effort replies claiming that AI will somehow magically eliminate all jobs for humans.

Re: The Public Should Own Half of the Big A.I. Companies

#50

Post by nailer »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #5

Why half of AI and not half of Walmart & Exxon & Apple? Government spending is already ~40% of GDP. And what do we get with this half? A sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims. What benefit does that have for anyone else? You can't build a sovereign wealth fund if you're transferring all the money out. That's just mor…

> sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims.

Taking ownership of these companies is a Bernie thing not a Trump thing, but a sovereign wealth fund is used to pay off national debt.

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