They do this in Alaska's fund with great success[0] and Alaska is a deep red state. It's primarily funded by oil and gas revenue and other mineral royalties. Also thats only (at least) 25% of total revenue, the other 75% the state spends directly.

Norway's oil fund is another famous example mentioned in the article.[1]

[0]: https://apfc.org/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

And given that the training data is very much international, why would this be just a USA-sovereign fund and not a world-fund?

Because AI companies basically took everything we ever wrote, drew, recorded, posted, or thought and turned it into a product with the power to lie, propagandize, and manipulate the public with zero oversight. Walmart is a parasite using welfare to subsidize their operations but they didn't tell a judge that they were immune to copyright because they stole just so much damn information.

> Government spending is already ~40% of GDP.

> A sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims.

Use the sovereign wealth fund to reduce income taxes. Other countries manage to run wealth funds without corruption. If a country can't do it then, I hate to break it to you, it's definitely not the fund's fault.

> Why half of AI and not half of Walmart & Exxon & Apple?

Good question. The answer: a more broad-based wealth tax, in the form of assets which go into a sovereign wealth fund, is probably the only way to make the long-term pension math work out in developed countries. You can only tax labor so much when capital actually has the most growth.

The focus on AI is just to capture some of the current zeitgeist. Socialists generally think that most large businesses be run for the public benefit in some form or another.

This is basically making that point with AI companies as their true influence is rapidly increasing. The rhetorical strategy here is to hook socialist ideas onto something people are already thinking about, a land-and-expand rhetorical strategy.

Personally I'm against the proposal, but the details are not the point because it's not going happen in this form. It's about changing minds first, then changing policy down the road.

Because unlike AI companies Apple, Walmart, Exxon are not taking away all human generated knowledge and dumping in their data centers?

From the article:

> Let us be clear. Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative A.I. tools didn’t just pop into Sam Altman’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination. A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations.

You get Social Security and Medicare. Which are cheaper now than they will ever be, as the population is only getting older.

They know it will tank and want you money to save their friends.

> sovereign wealth fund? That seems like a great tool for a certain corrupt politician to use as a carrot to make CEO's bend to his/her whims.

Taking ownership of these companies is a Bernie thing not a Trump thing, but a sovereign wealth fund is used to pay off national debt.