50% might have been a fair cut if they actually asked for permission up front,but they didn't. Everything made by AI is fruit if the poison tree and should be something equal to public domain.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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50% seems very low. They created these companies by scraping and pirating information.
50% means that they just need to fool a few people to get what they want. Imo it should be more like 90% public with a requirement that all services must be provided for free.
Almost everyone in this thread seems to be assuming the US would pay for half the shares/equity of these companies.
That is not what is being proposed.
What is being proposed is that the US Govt simply seize half the shares/equity/board voting powers in these companies, without paying a cent for them.
It is a half-nationalization.
Not a half-bailout.
EDIT
I go into more detail and explain in this comment in this same thread:
True but most of the value of these LLMs comes from ingesting data produced by the public, with a healthy amount of copyrighted data.
Would you be in favour of class action lawsuits to compensate for the intellectual theft instead?
Good clarification. I'm convinced we will end up bailing them out anyway. We should nationalize and operate as a public good if generative AI is that important to society.
I genuienly struggle to think of a kind of economic thing that better qualifies as a public utility.
Completely agree that this kind of technology, with such broad and immense ongoing, as well as potential implications, cannot be allowed to be directed by the whims of wealthy capitalist conmen rent seekers.
Nationalization doesn't change the fact that for example OpenAI plans to burn $100B in 2026 without any profit so taxpayers will inherit $50B debt just from 2026. Moreover it doesn't stop those companies for raising more debt from for example corporate bonds emission just by saying 50% of their capital is government owned. That would allow them to literally raise trillions.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/12/30/openais-cash-burn-will-be-one-of-the-big-bubble-questions-of-2026
https://archive.ph/8Ej9z
If OpenAI fails, and the government owns half of it...
The assets and power the government acquired for no monetary cost simply becomes zero.
The other part of simply seizing half the shares is that the government (presumably a number of ministers/officials in charge of the new sovereign wealth fund) now has half the voting power of the entire board.
That is a pretty direct way to wield influence as to the decisions the company can make, how the CEO can behave.
You want maybe the accounting to actually deprecate the GPUs they have or lease over a realistic timeframe, instead of a totally bullshit one?
Half of your shareholders now demand this.
C Suite refuse to comply?
Begin the process of firing them.
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If this ever passed, I bet we’d see a pretty quick devaluation in these things.
I'm okay with that. The bubble is going to burst eventually.
Funny - bis Argument is : ai is built in human collective knowledge thus wie should participate in the profits and ... Give it all to americans
Dont get me wrong i like the sentiment - but seems like it comes down to - ai was built by THe collective knowledge of all humans - the profits should go to all americans
I mean however unlikely this law is to pass it would be outright impossible if the idea was to take 50% of AI profits and then somehow mail checks to every person on earth, even outside of the country doing the profit distribution
Other countries are free to do that for any LLMs developed in their own jurisdiction.
Does this mean we'll all be bag holders when the AI bubble bursts?
We are already holding the bag.
They are "too big to fail"
It is the de way
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50% sounds fair
No.
100% is fair.
They stole every bit of what they used to build this shit sandwich.
You know they will agree and give everyone stakes exactly when bubble is about to pop
You didn't read the article, or you didn't understand it.
The US Govt would not pay a cent for the shares of these companies.
It would simply seize them, half-nationalize them.
Its a half nationalization, not a half bailout.
Public stake isn't for profits (especially not short term capital gains), it's about concentration & not getting controlled.
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What happens when they go bust?
Maybe we all get to enjoy a massive tax write off like a big business
But the government will actually own it, not you and me. So the government will write of its taxes to itself?
I have no idea lol
Wouldn’t this make everyone interested in the bad business practices that would increase the profits?
More likely in would just exarcerbate the financial instability of the AI industry and hasten its downfall, which I'm all for
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First of all, fuck no. Remove all of the AI companies. Now. Secondly, this will guarantee they become "too big to fail". Like, it feels as if they're purposefully doing this to make it palatable to bail them out.
I agree. No public funds should go to AI. No taxpayer money should be used to construct AI or datacenters. When the AI companies start to collapse, they should receive no bailouts.
Bailouts are corruption. Why do the rich get socialism and the rest of us get crushing capitalism? When we fail, we get stepped on. When the rich fail, they get billion dollar bailouts? But they claim they deserve to keep all their riches because they worked hard for it?
I could be a billionaire oligarch too if all of my failures were compensated for with billion dollar bailouts. It's not hard to succeed when you are elevated to the heights of the gods every time you face a little adversity.
I think the intention is to get the profits of automation to the people when more jobs are inevitably automated.
It is, but unintended consequences.
With this, then we couldn't afford Sam Altman to experience failure because he will drag folks down with him. So the companies invested become too big to fall, and the still private leadership gets to run things however they wish knowing the government will cover for any mistakes.
It's bad enough as the government will panic about retirement accounts when they falter, this exacerbates it.
It's a risky form of private-public partnership, with a lot of ways the company can privatize rewards but socialize the risk.
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Not wrong... But also sounds a lot like communism (the people own the means of production and all that). So it might be a bit too radical for the US.
50% too low.
It would be a good idea if the entirety of the current industry for it wasn't built entirely on smoke and mirrors type promises.
The general idea (so far as I can parse) is that if these companies are expecting a government bailout when it all goes south, then the tax payers who would be bailing them out should get paid back. But in practice, what will happen is we'll be saddled with the debt and these companies will weasel out of it.
The fact is I don't want to own a stake in any of these companies. I would rather they make it illegal for these companies to ask for a bailout from the government and close loopholes they will use to file for bankruptcy.
If they're going to fail the government should buy their assets (data centers, infrastructure, etc) if the people agree that's okay. Instead of what will likely happen (the companies left standing when it all goes under will buy up all the assets dirt cheap).
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Not the right move dawg
Better idea: drive a stake 50% through AI CEO's chest. Better, faster results, not just economically, but ecologically too!
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