Public equity in AI companies may do more harm than good
It's becoming a popular policy proposal, but may dampen public enthusiasm for stopping the AI race
An article in Politico today discusses California Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to give the American public a financial stake in AI companies. Newsom seems to be “tempering his pro-tech instincts with an alloy of economic populism,” and this may be a deliberate strategy for a potential 2028 presidential run, according to the article.
The idea of giving Americans a stake in AI companies is not new, and has been championed by a wide range of political figures, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Donald Trump. OpenAI and Anthropic have also floated the idea in policy papers. I gave my cynical take on Anthropic’s public equity proposal in a June dispatch.
That it’s now being made “central to [Newsom’s] shadow campaign” speaks to wider awareness among politicians that AI is a pressing issue. Americans are increasingly wary of AI companies, and any politician who hopes to gain favor must address their concerns. That’s a positive sign about the influence of public sentiment on policy.
What worries me is that public equity will lessen this influence. As I wrote in response to Anthropic’s proposal, tying more financial stakeholders to the development of a potentially catastrophic technology seems like it could dampen public pressure to enact an international AI pause or slowdown.
And we need such a slowdown if we are to survive this period of transformation. Job loss and inequality are just the beginning of what could go wrong when AI companies race to make a technology nobody understands — and which already deceives and manipulates — smarter than the smartest humans. The top priority must be stopping the race; adding more short-term financial incentives is not the way to do this.
Finally, government and labs shouldn’t “buy” American support. They should get it by putting short-term profit aside and abandoning the development of a technology that, by their own admission, could get us all killed.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.