Sanders’ Soviet approach to AI a failure in-the-making

If bad ideas could serve as an energy source, then Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., might become America’s most valuable commodity. Over the years, he has proven to be a wellspring of perhaps well-intentioned but wholly inadvisable policy positions. “I favor the public ownership of utilities, banks and major industries,” he announced in 1976.

It was the kind of platform you’d expect from someone enamored with the Soviet Union, and in fact, Sanders honeymooned there in 1988 and gushed over communists’ supposed triumphs. The Soviet Union collapsed in utter failure three years later. That didn’t stop Sanders who has remained a cheerleader of government approaches to stamp out free markets.

Instead of stumping for communism, he waves the banner of its rebrand: “democratic socialism.” In some ways, this is little more than putting lipstick on a pig. Same ideas, just framed slightly differently, which brings me to Sanders’ latest problematic proposal – what sounds like nationalizing the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry.

“I will soon be introducing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act,” Sanders declared in a New York Times opinion piece. “If passed, this legislation would do two crucial things. First, it would give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology,” and “The federal government would have the power […] to block decisions that hurt our citizens and to push for policies that help them.”

“Second,” Sanders continued, “this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us — not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.” There is a lot to unpack there and practically all of it bad.

To begin with, putting the government in charge of business decisions will result in spectacular failure. Congress often moves at a snail’s pace and hasn’t balanced a budget in a quarter century. These are not the hallmarks of a successful business. Never mind that. Government is also not composed of AI experts who know how to run technology companies better than the industry’s pioneers. The government would create hulking bureaucracies that would stumble, stifle and undermine once-thriving businesses.

Look at the Soviet Union for evidence of this. With its central planning and bureaucratic structures, the communist state struggled to innovate in the way that tech companies must. The U.S. far outpaced the USSR and developed advanced computing systems – leaving the Soviets technologically behind and largely unable to catch up without stealing and reverse-engineering American technology.

Despite that, Sanders wants to seize majority stakes in numerous tech companies and wrestle control of them from their founders. But what justification does he have for such a drastic move? “For the most part, tech oligarchs have fed […] knowledge into their AI models without permission, without acknowledgment, without compensation,” Sanders explained. “In other words, the creative work of millions of people […] has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world. It’s time for us to reclaim it. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity,” Sanders asserted.

Long story short, according to Sanders, entrepreneurs – who have created paradigm-shifting innovations that will generate a lot of wealth – don’t deserve to reap the benefits or drive business decisions. This is misguided and immoral because this is, in essence, theft. The government would be stealing what someone else spent years creating.

This seizure is OK per Sanders’ thinking. After all, he claims without providing any evidence that AI companies stole the information and data that it relies on. The truth is that AI draws on publicly available sources found across the internet. And it is limited by paywalls, licensing issues and so forth, although there is ongoing debate and even litigation attempting to determine what, if any, copyrighted material contributes to AI models. In that respect, it is not much different than anyone browsing the web, or going to the library, reading books and then synthesizing the findings.

In fairness, Sanders displayed a degree of humility within his opinion piece. “Needless to say,” he wrote, “I recognize that for the government to have a major stake in a company, particularly one for which AI is only part of its business, is complicated. More details — including the specific spending priorities and the mechanics of implementation — will be included in the legislation I unveil in the coming weeks.”

That implies Sanders doesn’t even know how his legislation would work yet, which isn’t a strong start for him, but it is straight out of the Soviet playbook: seize the means of production and figure out the details later. Once again, Sanders has tried to resuscitate an old, failed policy, but America is best served if Congress lets this one die.