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CALL AND RESPONSE — Who will benefit from the AI boom, and what policies will spread the wealth most widely in California and beyond?
Those are the questions asked in a policy paper from the Economic Security Project, the nonprofit whose Golden State advocacy arm, Economic Security California Action, has pushed a range of AI bills in recent years including as a co-sponsor of state Sen. Scott Wiener’s landmark SB 53 law regulating frontier AI labs, which passed last year.
The policy outline contains many concepts that will be familiar to Sacramento watchers, including safeguards against digital price-gouging and monopolies, worker surveillance and data center-inflated electricity prices. The California Legislature is considering a range of bills on the topics this session, after mulling some of the same issues last year as well.
There are also a range of proposals in the outline — like establishing an “income floor” to get ahead of AI-driven labor market disruptions — that go beyond what legislators are currently cogitating.
“Civil society and government must not allow a small set of corporations to dictate the means and ends of how AI is deployed, and should instead put mechanisms in place to ensure AI is built to benefit all Americans, not just a select few,” the Economic Security Project’s Becky Chao wrote in the memo.
Last week, OpenAI released a broad industry policy framework that claims AI’s benefits would outweigh its challenges, while also voicing concern about issues like job disruption and how governments might misuse the powerful technology.
That document calls for a range of policy fixes for AI-driven disruption, like respecting labor rights in the economy of the future, a right to AI and a public wealth fund to give more people a stake in AI-driven growth.
Some of those concepts jibe with Economic Security’s view of things. But Teri Olle, director of Economic Security California Action, questioned to Decoded whether the company was pushing to get those ideas cemented in law and policy.
“We have not so far seen OpenAI do the kinds of things or contribute to the kinds of policies that they’re suggesting,” Olle said.
OpenAI’s global affairs chief Chris Lehane did not specify in an interview last week what legislation the company might support to transform the white paper into policy.
The company’s foundation has poured millions into nonprofits and more recently funded $100 million worth of grants into disease research, with billions more promised for areas like community programs and economic studies on AI impacts.
Lehane has argued against a state “patchwork” of AI laws. Company President Greg Brockman is a major donor of the pro-industry super PAC group Leading the Future, which has run ads against New York State Rep. Alex Bores after he got an AI law passed similar to Wiener’s measure.
In the face of AI-driven job disruption, the Economic Security Project’s paper calls for expanding social safety net programs like unemployment insurance, but also suggests “direct cash transfers” could mitigate some of the harms of job displacement.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has funded experiments into the kind of universal basic income the Economic Security Project is floating.
Notably, California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer has promised to create a “Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund” with money from the AI boom. His plan also calls for requiring data centers to pay for their own electricity to protect consumers from inflated power bills, a policy supported in principle by the White House. Numerous proposals regulating data centers are under consideration in Sacramento, and the Economic Security Project memo echoes some of their core tenets.
Ensuring fair competition in an area where AI technology is increasingly being built by a select few companies is also a key plank of the platform. Olle’s group is a sponsor of Wiener’s BASED Act, which prohibits companies from giving their own products and services preferential treatment on their sites.
“The idea of the scrappy startup … is being stifled because of the stranglehold the dominant tech companies have on that market,” Olle said. For decades, California has relied heavily on large tech companies to generate tax revenue to pay for state programs, leading to a concentration of power and wealth.
“The economic engine could be more robust and better spread out,” Olle said.