For 100% public ownership and workers’ control of AI!
By B. COOPER
The national battle over “AI” is sparking a discussion on public ownership, a discussion that reveals the weakness of Democratic reformers and Republican leaders alike regarding the real needs of U.S. working people in the fight against the tech oiligarchs.
On June 3, an hour-long meeting was held between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss the “idea” of transferring a portion of the company to public ownership. The meeting—held at the request of AI capitalist Altman—came after a June 1 post on the senator’s website proposing legislation to give “half of the big A.I. companies” to the public. Friday also saw non-committal comments by President Trump—a well-worn demagogue—expressing “interest” in partial public ownership.
As reported by the Associated Press, Altman (to nobody’s surprise) rejected the idea for 50% ownership, and wouldn’t commit to curbing election spending by AI companies. He wanted merely to promote “the general idea.” Needless to say, the AI hype-mongers, Altman included, have always spoken in abstract terms about AI promoting the “public good” while they rake in billions of profits selling AI tools to the military, the surveillance state, and Israel during its genocidal campaign in Gaza. In the meantime, they are replacing workers with AI agents for social services—robbing people of jobs and quality service.
It is clear as day that the national outrage and growing resistance by working people against AI data centers is exerting pressure on some policymakers, which unelected tech-oligarchs such as Altman feel the need to gesture to. This doesn’t stop Altman from traveling around the country, like a statesman, promoting data centers shoulder-to-shoulder with Democratic lawmakers.
The only solution to society’s problems is 100% public ownership under the democratic control of working people. The capitalist class has no interest in “sharing” power with the people whom they intend to exploit or over the destiny of a planet they intend to exploit.
The weakness of Bernie Sanders
A post on Sanders’ website proposing new legislation hypes up AI as “the most transformative technology in the history of the world,” which will have “unimaginable” consequences. The Senator then poses the rather important question of who will control this technology in the future, to which he gives a confused answer.
Given that the stakes of controlling this “most transformative technology” have been raised to the level of “unimaginable,” one would think that the appropriate response would be an unprecedented systemic change. But Sanders’ proposal is quite modest—a *sovereign wealth fund—*an idea that barely stretches the already emaciated imagination of a “democratic socialism” that refuses to fully confront the capitalist system.
As explained by Sanders, the sovereign wealth fund would convert half of AI company stocksinto U.S. government property. This would presumably give the federal government an equal say at company board meetings about how to deploy AI tech. It would also presumably allow the U.S. government to spend the wealth of these stocks on public programs or even direct Universal Basic Income (UBI) payments.
It is quite telling that “democratic socialism” takes a cue from the tech billionaires themselves, who previously, as Sanders mentions, proposed the ideas of a public wealth fund and direct paychecks to offset the job killing potential of AI. The reason should be obvious. This sector of the capitalist class has a desire to buy off the working masses with a concession that would not fundamentally alter the property relations in which they make profits.
This is made even clearer when Sanders references Alaska’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), which is based on oil revenue. The Alaskan SWF, while approved in a statewide referendum, does not put Big Oil under democratic control—nor curb it’s worst environmental excesses—but rather appropriates a portion of oil pipeline revenue for public services. Fossil fuel “oiligarchs” can take the hit in profits; from their point of view, it’s the cost of public relations for building their essential infrastructure!
The SWF proposed by Sanders, even if passed, would be toothless so long as Big Oil, weapons makers, and AI capitalists are free to buy politicians via campaign funding. In reality, no government under capitalism, especially not the United States, is totally separate from the capitalist class. Many former CEOs become congressmen or senators, and vice versa. Indeed, so long as capitalism continues to exist, the money-bags will have unlimited means to influence politics and bribe politicians.
What Sanders ignores
The first natural question is: why not just nationalize AI companies? Sanders and other “progressive” Democrats talk about resisting the horrible and “unimaginable” future when the billionaires would control our lives like god-kings. But they are unable to propose the obvious solution—kick them out! Eliminate the possibility of tech dictatorship by the elimination of private property (and private profits) in the industries that are, in truth, the product of the socialized labor of workers and therefore by right should belong to them [1]!
Rather, Sanders protects the interests of the money-bags by promising them continued ownership of half of the wealth! Being in a dominant position, Altman says, “no” naturally, but leaves the door open for more talks.
Even the hypothetical nationalization of AI, in full or in part, is peanuts. One of the major elements of the public outrage over AI data centers is not solely against the technology of AI alone. It is also, and unavoidably, a fight overthe land. Without forgetting for a moment the environmental costs of data centers (to air, to water, of CO2 emissions), the only reason why local chambers of commerce (who represent capitalist, not worker, interests) can sneakily introduce data centers over the heads of the local population, or even think of beginning construction without discussion, is because they have the resources—and the right, under capitalism—to freely buy and sell land marked for “development” (read: for private business).
As long as land exists as private property, working people will be forced to resist the greed of the developers. Struggle over the land has always been a big aspect of the class struggle in U.S. history. Recent examples include Indigenous struggles to protect the land from oil guzzling pipelines, the struggle against Cop City (for which activist Tortuguita was murdered in cold blood by Atlanta cops), and struggles by Black workers to resist gentrification and stop pollution in our cities. Working people have also resisted the destruction of wildlife. The struggle to control AI data centers is the latest in a long succession of struggles over the land!
Revolutionary socialism proposes 100% public control of not merely industry, transport, and the banks, but also of the land. Pass all of the SWFs you desire. It will mean nothing so long as the land and the banks are the private property of big business.
AI stocks go public
It was recently reported that Sam Altman has filled an initial public offering. What this means is that OpenAI stock may soon be freely tradable on the open stock market. This move is generally undertaken by a company seeking to expand its profits by allowing a greater layer of investors, of all sizes, to fund the company and in turn partake in its profitability—or collapse. Whatever the future holds, it shows that the OpenAI CEO is not taking Sanders seriously.
Several competitors are also going public on the stock market, including Anthropic and Musk’s SpaceX. The way the SpaceX IPO was structured to both make Musk the first trillionaire and also allow him to retain ownership of about 46% of SpaceX stock while controlling over 80% of votes in the company. Catapulted unto the S&P 500, SpaceX is poised lodge itself into every 401k [2]. Although several observers are questioning the risks of allowing a company with such a huge value to enter the stock market without safeguards, Wall St. regulators won’t impede Musk in his quest to make his numbers go up.
The irony is layered. These companies are already the most heavily invested in to ever take place—all because of the hype for “the most transformative technology in world history,” a claim AI companies feel compelled to make come true (via government policy), to justify the most colossal bubble in world history.
When Senator Sanders proposed that the U.S. government own 50% of AI stocks (Musk would part with merely 20%, BTW), this would be in the context of a capitalist stock market in which stocks obey the law of value, the law that dictates prices in a capitalist economy. Therefore, when a private company goes public on the stock market, this is as democratic as the buying and selling of any other commodity on the capitalist market.
The stock market by its very nature makes the partial owner in a company beholden to the whims of the majority owner, who in turn is driven by the capitalist market to increase the value of the stock. This is precisely the logic at the bottom of the tech-bros rushing AI into everything. Throwing previously unheard of wealth into the open stock market is also part of this same strategy to artificially inflate the value of AI companies.
Putting aside the previously mentioned problems of corruption, implementation, and scope, what should we make of the government owning 50% of the stocks in a project that has been created essentially for private profit? Essentially, social services are being tied to the success or failure of the company. Either you do what you can to keep the stock afloat, i.e., support the unrestricted growth of AI, or you let the stock collapse along with social services.
SWFs don’t give Alaskan or Norwegian working people power over the oil magnates, but rather make their governments beholden to these very same magnates, who can thus be cast as benevolent providers of services while exercising outsized influence on municipal and regional governments. It would be no different with the AI companies, which would be seeking to continually enlarge their profits. An SWF would simply be another lever of capitalist control, not working-class emancipation.
The “democratic socialism” of the Sanders type once again proves itself too narrow. For the working people to control future technologies (and it is they alone who should), the financial sector and all the banks must also be 100% publicly owned and controlled by the workers!
Workers need their own government, one that will mercilessly kick the billionaires to the curb and organize a socialist economy based on common ownership and control of all land, all finances, and all industry. Such a government would have to be truly humanistic at its core, rejecting the dismantling of basic social services and giving jobs to people, not AI agents. This future is quite imaginable when working people fight for it!
For 100% public ownership of all AI! Of the land! Of industry! Of transport! Of the banks! For democratic control of the economy by workers, farmers, Indigenous people, and the community!
For a maximum income—abolish multi-millionaire, billionaire, and trillionaire wealth! Fund Social Security to provide a full livelihood for elders and retirees; free quality health care for all!
Notes:
[1] This is equally true for AI tools, which are powered by the natural intelligence of human workers in the Global South, or so-called “crowdworkers.” Companies like Prolific, Remotetasks, and Qualtrics provide crowdwork as a service via the “gig” economy, although bigger companies like Amazon have in-house crowdwork. Workers in Kenya, India, and Uganda constantly update text and images to correct mistakes in AI training models. These workers are consistently exposed to hate speech, gore, and child abuse content to moderate AI outputs. The job is underpaid with inconsistent hours and no labor protections. This labor goes on invisibly to consumers of AI services in the Global North, and tech companies prefer it that way.
[2] It is a stunning example of capitalist greed how funding retirement has been bound up with the stock market via the 401k system. Meanwhile, other more equitable forms of retirement funding, such as pensions or Social Security, are disappearing or at risk. Our elders deserve better than capitalism.
Photo: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to reporters in Washington following his meeting with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. (AFP / Yonhap)
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