OpenAI: In early talks to give 5% stake to US Government

This feels a bit off.. How is the government supposed to be able to regulate them impartially when they're literally invested in them.

What if a competitive startup startup starts to really take away from OpenAi's profits and then all of a sudden requires some approval for merger with Anthropic for example, I don't know if I would trust the government to be fair in their decision here.

Leaving aside the potential for letting the government(tax payers) hold the bag if there is a collapse.

Seems to be a very bad mechanism to ensure democratic control of the technology. There must be better ways, even naively assuming that OpenAI is somehow genuine about wanting to broadly share its stake in the future.

This is 9 years old. Shows that Sam Altman has been thinking about this for a while https://blog.samaltman.com/american-equity

I know OpenAI has delayed their IPO by a year (i.e. not publicly traded, yet; so: no dividends), but wouldn't it be better for the Government/bottom 95% if instead of taking ownership, they taxed all tech-related stocks 5% every time they're traded – this is a perpetual stream of income, and would likely reduce speculative short-term trading...

source: middle-aged electrician, owns a little stock (and would happily pay trading taxes, either in/out/both); know nothing unrelated to copper; eats crayons

Interesting. But if Sam really believes that the US public should share in the benefits of AI surely the number should be 50% not 5%.

But governments cannot be trusted, better give it to an independent entity like they did with the Qatari jet

Isn't this what people wanted? The public to have access to the gains of these companies?

I don't want public ownership of any private companies but this seems to be what slopulism leads us to

> Altman has also reportedly spoken with the Democratic senator Bernie Sanders in recent weeks. The senator has been pushing for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund overseen by an independent commission and financed through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the biggest AI companies.

Bernie shooting for the moon here

Taxes are theft. This is absurd.

There’s zero reason to bail these ding dongs out. Their entire business proposition has been to keep warm by incinerating fresh cash.

Just a reminder: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/13lgbir/sam_altman...

I'd settle for Altman and his ilk paying a proper progressive income tax.

This is how they will secure eventual bailout.

[dead]

Does OpenAI not have mandatory compliance training which forbids them from giving any government a bribe as a condition of doing business?