Bernie Sanders Saw This Coming

It’s hard to believe Bernie Sanders.

Not because the longtime Vermont senator bears the hallmarks of a liar. Yes, he’s a career politician, but the 84-year-old progressive torchbearer counts more viral memes than scandals to his name. Rather, it’s hard to believe Bernie Sanders because, for decades, he’s told Americans that this country can radically change, while championing ideas too far afield from the status quo to really have a chance. He wants to bring billionaires to heel, for one. And implement universal, government-run health care. College tuition? If Sanders had his way, it wouldn’t even exist.

Things can change. I believe it, and WIRED champions it. But change that much? In this country? Really, Bernie?

Sanders, though, is now hard at work adding one more big, improbable change to the pile: Since 2023, he’s been advocating for firm and decisive regulation of the AI industry. In March of this year, Sanders and his frequent collaborator, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, proposed legislation that would halt data center construction until a series of safeguards are implemented. In June, Sanders announced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would essentially tax AI’s richest companies and result in direct payments to American citizens.

I wanted to talk to Sanders about those bills, and his perspective on AI more broadly. On a deeper level, though, I was curious about how Sanders sees the barriers to regulation—from tech oligarchs and deep-pocketed super PACs, to a federal administration happier to enrich itself via technology than actually govern it—and whether he thinks those seemingly intractable obstacles can be overcome. After a few months of haranguing, Sanders agreed to sit down, which is how I found myself in his modest DC campaign office watching the senator—thoughtful, genuine, vociferous as ever—grapple in real time with what he describes as “the most consequential, transformational technology in the history of humanity.”

Sanders and I spoke on Tuesday, June 23, as the New York Democratic primary was underway. I woke up the next day, our conversation echoing in my head, to find that a coalition of democratic socialists had swept their respective elections and sent party stalwarts into an existential tailspin. A few hours later, New Jersey representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, became the most mainstream member of the party to publicly support an AI data center moratorium.

The uber-wealthy elites aren’t going away anytime soon. Neither is the president or his band of barely competent cronies. In this country, the tangled roots of power—become a trillionaire, buy an election, build that damn data center—run deep. But the anger of an American majority, across party lines, might soon run deeper. They’re fighting data centers at town halls across the country. Turning out by the millions at nationwide protests. And in New York and across the country, they’re spurning establishment candidates at the polls.

Something, it seems, is breaking. Something has to break. Believe Bernie Sanders? I just might.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KATIE DRUMMOND: Senator Sanders, thank you so much for your time.

BERNIE SANDERS: My pleasure.

Wonderful. I want to start by talking about the sovereign wealth fund that you’ve proposed in the context of AI. Tell us how it would work.

BERNIE SANDERS: All right. I'm gonna get to that.

Get to it.

BERNIE SANDERS: One second. I wanna back it up. What drove me to push for a moratorium on data centers and the sovereign wealth fund is the fact that, and I think most people know, AI is being pushed by the wealthiest people in the world, people like [Elon] Musk, and [Jeff] Bezos, and [Mark] Zuckerberg and those type of guys, and they could care less about the needs of ordinary people.

AI is the most consequential, transformational technology in the history of humanity, and it’s being pushed by guys who could care less, just wanna get richer and more powerful. That has got to stop.

What has distressed me very much is, I looked all around me in Congress. You would think that with such a transformational technology that’s going to impact every aspect of their life, there’d be massive debates, right? This committee would be doing, “Oh my God, we got this legislation. What are we gonna … ?” Zero. Nothing. As of this date, as of today, there's not been one significant piece of legislation dealing with AI.

So what did we do? We did two things. Number one, we said, Wait a minute. You’re building these data centers all over the country, and in fact, all over the world. They’re having a very negative impact on local environments, on electric costs, et cetera. Slow it down. Let’s make a moratorium, unless we start getting guidelines and legislation to protect ordinary people.

Second of all, we proposed an AI sovereign wealth fund. It does two things. First of all, most importantly, it says that on an issue of such transformational impact, you can’t let a handful of billionaires determine the future of humanity. The public has got to own half of these industries, meaning that half of the members of the board will be representatives of the public. What’s important is if there are ideas and proposals, or technology, that will lead to massive unemployment or endanger the well-being of kids or privacy rights, you are going to have half of that board say, “Sorry, bad idea. You can’t do it.”

And as AI, as I expect, becomes more and more lucrative, these guys make more and more money, that money should not just go to a handful of very wealthy people.

What is the foundation of AI? What is it based on? It’s based on human knowledge, human work. You’ve written a book, they got it. You’ve written a poem, you’ve done some scientific work.

You've written for WIRED, they have that too.

BERNIE SANDERS: That's right. Exactly. And what compensation did you get for that?

Our writers and our company and our publication received zero dollars.

BERNIE SANDERS: Zero dollars.

But the point is, that is the foundation of AI, so the public should benefit from that financially as well. So what we are saying is that half of the increase in revenue, in wealth that is created by AI, should go to the people as well.

These are public companies paying into this sovereign wealth fund?

BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

The Microsofts, the Googles.

BERNIE SANDERS: Any company of $200 million or more. The larger ones.

Now, you talked a few minutes ago about members of Congress. The absence of urgency that you’ve seen there. I would argue there has been a consistent absence of urgency among politicians around technology for many decades, and I want to ask …

BERNIE SANDERS: It's not only technology. It's a lot of other things as well.

A lot of other things, but I’m very focused on technology. What kind of buy-in do you think exists now for the idea of a sovereign wealth fund, and what needs to happen for it to become a reality in this country?

BERNIE SANDERS: Look, everything is political.

You’re a member of Congress and you say, “You know, I want to talk to some constituents. I’m worried about the impact on children’s mental health, and I’m worried about jobs. You know what? I think we should do something.” You know what happens when you’re running for office? You know what happens the next day? You got millions of dollars in 30-second ads coming out against you.

Right.

BERNIE SANDERS: So when you talk about lack of urgency, it’s not that members of Congress are stupid. They are not, by and large. It is that they are frightened. You want to be in politics, you want to get reelected. In fact, there was a member that went out, I think on the Democratic side, and said “It might be a good idea to stay away from that issue. Don't think about it.” Because you start talking about it, you come up with logical ideas as to how we go forward, the AI industry’s gonna go after you. They’re gonna spend, in this midterm election, hundreds and hundreds and h