OpenAI wants to raise taxes on the rich, expand the welfare state, let workers decide how their employers use artificial intelligence, and give everyone a cut of the tech industry\u2019s profits.<\/p>\n
Or so the company claims in a new vision statement.<\/a><\/p>\n In that document, the AI titan argues that the government needs to enact sweeping economic reforms, so as to \u201cshare prosperity broadly\u201d in \u201cthe age of intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan received far more attention than your typical policy white paper, due largely to its improbable author. Tech companies do not typically issue sweeping proposals for restructuring the American economy.<\/p>\n This said, OpenAI\u2019s vision statement is not entirely unprecedented. AI moguls have long warned that their technology could cause mass unemployment<\/a>, while gesturing toward the need for income redistribution<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, even by those standards of Silicon Valley thought leadership, the agenda OpenAI outlines is remarkably progressive. In fact, it overlaps heavily with Sen. Bernie Sanders\u2019s own AI proposals<\/a> (minus his moratorium on data center construction). Since advanced AI could shift income away from workers and toward business owners, OpenAI proposes the creation of a \u201cpublic wealth fund.\u201d Essentially, the government would purchase a stake in the nation\u2019s most profitable companies and then give shares to every US citizen. In other words, it would give Americans a little socialism, as a treat.<\/p>\n OpenAI also calls for, among other things: higher capital gains taxes; more public funding for jobs in health care, education, and community service; giving workers more influence over corporate governance; and holding AI companies accountable to new safety regulations.<\/p>\n All of these policies are hazily sketched. The document is 13 pages and dedicates only a short paragraph to most of its proposals. It reads a lot like something that ChatGPT would spit out, if you asked it to research ideas for combating AI-induced inequality for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n For OpenAI\u2019s progressive<\/a> critics<\/a>, however, its agenda is less irksome for its laziness than its hypocrisy: The political behavior of its top leaders belies the firm\u2019s purported commitment to egalitarian reform.<\/p>\n In truth, OpenAI is engaging in one of Silicon Valley\u2019s most annoying traditions: advertising its support for radical new social policies that have no actual chance of becoming law in the near-term, while ignoring \u2014 if not abetting \u2014 attacks on actual welfare programs in the here and now.<\/p>\n OpenAI supports social democracy in theory \u2014 and Republicans in practice<\/p>\n For years now, tech billionaires have been worrying aloud about how artificial intelligence could swell inequality and unemployment. And many have argued<\/a> that the government must create a universal basic income (UBI) \u2014 a guaranteed minimum salary for every American \u2014 to account for this risk. Elon Musk<\/a> and Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> were all making versions of that argument as far back as 2017.<\/p>\n Of course, there was no actual prospect of Congress creating a UBI that year. By contrast, congressional Republicans did try to gut the Affordable Care Act<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n The people in charge of OpenAI have made their political priorities clear \u2014 and sharing \u201cprosperity broadly\u201d is not among them. <\/p>\n It is hard to see how one could believe that 1) everyone should collect an income, regardless of their employment status and 2) people shouldn\u2019t necessarily receive health insurance if they don\u2019t have a job.<\/p>\n If tech-induced inequality justifies universal cash benefits, presumably it also demands universal health care. Yet Musk, Zuckerberg, and many of the Valley\u2019s other UBI proponents made little effort to thwart the GOP\u2019s attempted repeal of Obamacare. Nor did they mobilize to prevent the expiration of Joe Biden\u2019s enhanced Child Tax Credit<\/a>, a policy that effectively guaranteed a minimum income for all parents with young children.<\/p>\n In 2026, the disconnect between OpenAI\u2019s advocacy for legislatively irrelevant reforms \u2014 and its approach to live political debates \u2014 is even larger. While the company floats collective ownership of the AI industry in PDFs, its leaders are bankrolling the welfare state\u2019s opponents.<\/p>\n OpenAI itself<\/a> is staying out of political races. In September, though, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife gave $25 million<\/a> to a pro-Trump super PAC. Along with OpenAI investor Marc Andreessen, Brockman has also poured funds<\/a> into Leading Our Future, a PAC dedicated to electing opponents of state-level AI regulations. As part of that effort, the group is supporting a wide array of Republican candidates.<\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, maxed out donations<\/a> to several Republican lawmakers in 2024, while throwing $1 million toward Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration fund.<\/p>\n If this cash bought Altman and Brockman any influence with the White House, there\u2019s no sign they used it to oppose Trump\u2019s push for new work requirements<\/a> on food stamps and Medicaid last year.<\/p>\n And yet, those policies are totally antithetical to the economic philosophy that OpenAI is now broadcasting. Surely, if the threat of mass, AI-induced unemployment demands the creation of a public wealth fund, it must also forbid choking off basic medical care to millions of people who can\u2019t find work.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, OpenAI\u2019s leaders did not feel compelled to publicly oppose Trump\u2019s legislation. And Brockman\u2019s super PAC appears to put zero weight on its candidates\u2019 social welfare policies. Whether it is intervening Republican primaries or Democratic ones<\/a>, the group\u2019s sole concern seems to be blocking state-level AI safety regulations \u2014 including several that OpenAI ostensibly endorses <\/a>in its vision statement.<\/p>\n Bleeding-heart billionaires should get back to the basics<\/p>\n Of course, there are worse things than hypocrisy. I\u2019d rather see AI companies virtue signal about wealth redistribution than, say, build chatbots who rant about \u201cwhite genocide.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n