Great story. I’d just underscore as you know that one union—UNITE HERE—has in fact had a lot of success in recent years organizing food service workers in the tech industry. High wages, excellent healthcare, pensions. Not enough by itself to save us from the greed of the techno-billionaires, but not nothing.
There are strong arguments on both sides. I like the idea of the government being part of understanding every development that takes place in AI, not running after it, trying to catch up. If, on Bernie's idea, the state owned a majority of the shares in these big AI corporations, it could fully understand every development, and influence both process and outcome. By process, I mean, it could insist on unionization within the corporations, and union influence in the outcomes so as to protect work for workers. Also, the taxation could still be done, as it should be done for profits generated globally. Government involvement could ensure there's no "cheating", like corporations paying royalties to themselves in some tax-haven country. It would mean too that the current model - of government's assisting corporations (as in the auto industry in Canada) through grants, that have no hold over the corporation, would end. That model has allowed corporations to take the cash and run, closing their operations paid for by the people of Canada. State majority ownership is different from public-private partnership, which typically ends with the private taking the profits and the public paying for them. Majority ownership gives a leverage over developments, over process, business conduct, business ethics and overall policy direction.
Everything that you're describing can be accomplished by law, with no need for state ownership. Bernie's proposal was really aimed more at reaping economic benefits for the public, which can be accomplished with taxing and government spending bills.
I think you're probably right, Hamilton. The state ownership idea is very elaborate, with little to no public support, I recognize. I can see that tight regulation and enforcement, with rigorous tax collection, is certainly the easier way forward.
Great story. I’d just underscore as you know that one union—UNITE HERE—has in fact had a lot of success in recent years organizing food service workers in the tech industry. High wages, excellent healthcare, pensions. Not enough by itself to save us from the greed of the techno-billionaires, but not nothing.
Unite Here is great. Unions have had less success organizing the white collar tech workers unfortunately.
A new law was just passed and signed by Governor JB Pritzker on Monday - I believe California & NY have established similar boundaries -- is this a model for national legislation? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pritzker-to-sign-illinois-bill-aimed-at-artificial-intelligence-accountability/ar-AA27klX6?ocid=BingNewsSerp
How about simply enforcing copyright law - which all these LLM chatbots are in gross violation of?
Three very sensible and feasible proposals. Hoping corporate politicians can be persuaded.
There are strong arguments on both sides. I like the idea of the government being part of understanding every development that takes place in AI, not running after it, trying to catch up. If, on Bernie's idea, the state owned a majority of the shares in these big AI corporations, it could fully understand every development, and influence both process and outcome. By process, I mean, it could insist on unionization within the corporations, and union influence in the outcomes so as to protect work for workers. Also, the taxation could still be done, as it should be done for profits generated globally. Government involvement could ensure there's no "cheating", like corporations paying royalties to themselves in some tax-haven country. It would mean too that the current model - of government's assisting corporations (as in the auto industry in Canada) through grants, that have no hold over the corporation, would end. That model has allowed corporations to take the cash and run, closing their operations paid for by the people of Canada. State majority ownership is different from public-private partnership, which typically ends with the private taking the profits and the public paying for them. Majority ownership gives a leverage over developments, over process, business conduct, business ethics and overall policy direction.
Everything that you're describing can be accomplished by law, with no need for state ownership. Bernie's proposal was really aimed more at reaping economic benefits for the public, which can be accomplished with taxing and government spending bills.
I think you're probably right, Hamilton. The state ownership idea is very elaborate, with little to no public support, I recognize. I can see that tight regulation and enforcement, with rigorous tax collection, is certainly the easier way forward.