Senator Bernie Sanders thinks OpenAI should be broken up, and worries about the onslaught of AI: 'It's like a meteor coming to this planet. We gotta be prepared to deal with it in all of its complexity'
AI represents many things to many people. To some, a way to tackle menial work. To others, a tool for usurping artists and laying off workers. To Nvidia, it represents a significant portion of its $5 trillion valuation. To Senator Bernie Sanders, a meteor metaphor. Say that three times fast.
In a recent conversation with Axios (via Futurism), Sanders ponders the potential downsides of such a technology. He tells host Alex Thompson, "I worry… what the enormous transformational impact in our economy will be through AI and robotics."
When questioned on whether he thinks OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, should be broken up, he says, "yeah, I do". He suggests it's deeper than just that, though and that AI in general is "like a meteor coming to this planet. We gotta be prepared to deal with it in all of its complexity."
Just this week, OpenAI completed its restructure towards a for-profit entity, which the OpenAI website says "gives us the ability to keep pushing the frontier of AI, and an updated corporate structure to ensure progress serves everyone." It will be controlled by OpenAI's non-profit wing, though this allows it to shift goals as a company and seek extra funding.
This is all to say, despite initially having the intent of being a non-profit, OpenAI's goalposts have shifted somewhat. OpenAI's market cap, at the time of writing, puts the company at an estimated $500 billion, which is one-tenth that of Nvidia. AI is a big business, with trillions of dollars relying on it.
"The richest guys in this world are investing huge amounts of money into AI and robotics. And if you think that they give a damn about the needs of working-class people, you would be mistaken", says Sanders.
The Vermont senator doesn't just gesture at the money involved in big businesses reliant on the future of AI; he also talks about the effects it can have on culture and community. Referencing the Friend AI necklace, he says, with a great deal of sarcasm, "You don't need to relate to a human being anymore, you'll have somebody hanging around your neck as your AI buddy, right? I worry about that. How we continue community, how we relate to each other as human beings."
This is not the politician's first time being vocally critical of AI and its future. Back in July, he warned it would "displace millions and millions of workers" and that the least big businesses could do is implement a four-day work week to spread some of the efficiency gains onto those whose jobs may be at risk.
Let's hope, if a meteor is on the way, it'll get us Fridays off, at least.