Bernie Sanders wants an AI dividend

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world at unprecedented speed. Like the steam engine, electricity and the internet before it, it is transforming how we work, produce, communicate and make decisions.

Yet every technological revolution eventually produces the same political question: who benefits?

That debate has been thrust back into the spotlight by Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator from Vermont and one of America’s most influential progressive voices. A former Democratic presidential candidate, Sanders has argued that while AI has the potential to generate enormous economic gains, those benefits should not accrue solely to the technology companies building the models.

His intervention comes as governments across the world scramble to regulate artificial intelligence while remaining competitive in an increasingly intense technological race dominated by the United States and China.

Private investment built AI, but not alone

Few would dispute the central role played by companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and Meta.

Collectively, they have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in computing infrastructure, recruited many of the world’s leading researchers and accelerated breakthroughs that only a decade ago appeared distant.

Private capital has driven the current wave of innovation.

But Sanders argues that this is only part of the story.

Artificial intelligence systems are trained on an extraordinary body of human knowledge: scientific literature, books, journalism, public research, software, music, art and decades of digital information produced across society. Much of the underlying research that enabled today’s AI revolution—from early machine learning to semiconductor development and the internet itself—also benefited from decades of publicly funded scientific investment.

In other words, today’s AI boom rests on both private entrepreneurship and a vast collective inheritance.

That distinction matters because it shapes a larger political question: if the foundations of AI are partly public, should some of the wealth it creates also flow back to the public?

A new era of concentrated wealth?

Sanders’ warning extends beyond technology itself.

Artificial intelligence could become the largest productivity shock since the Industrial Revolution, boosting output across sectors from healthcare and manufacturing to finance and professional services.

Yet the economic gains may not be distributed evenly.

The companies developing frontier AI models already command enormous market valuations, control vast computing infrastructure and possess datasets that few competitors can match. Economists have increasingly warned that AI could reinforce existing market concentration, widening the gap between highly productive firms and the rest of the economy.

The concern is not simply that some companies will become richer. It is that AI could accelerate the concentration of economic power, data and political influence in the hands of a small number of firms.

The case for an AI dividend

To address that possibility, Sanders has pointed to models such as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which distributes annual payments to residents from oil revenues, and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which invests resource wealth for future generations.

His suggestion is not a fully developed legislative proposal but a broader principle: if AI generates extraordinary new wealth, governments should consider mechanisms that ensure society shares in those returns.

That could mean direct payments to citizens, greater investment in education and healthcare, expanded research funding or stronger social protection for workers displaced by automation.

Whether policymakers ultimately choose one model or another, Sanders is attempting to shift the conversation from regulating AI’s risks to governing its economic rewards.

Innovation still needs room to grow

Critics argue that excessive taxation or redistribution could undermine innovation at precisely the moment Western economies are racing to compete with China.

Developing frontier AI requires unprecedented investment in chips, energy infrastructure, data centres and highly specialised talent. Governments therefore face a delicate balancing act: encouraging innovation while ensuring that its benefits are broadly shared.

The debate is not simply between regulation and growth. It is about designing institutions capable of supporting both.

That includes lifelong learning, large-scale workforce retraining, stronger competition policy, updated intellectual property frameworks and international tax rules that reflect increasingly digital business models.

Europe’s opportunity

For Europe, the discussion carries particular significance.

Unlike the United States, the EU has relatively few global AI champions. Its influence instead lies in shaping the regulatory and governance framework surrounding emerging technologies.

Having already established itself as a global standard-setter through the AI Act, Brussels is well placed to broaden the conversation beyond safety and transparency towards questions of economic distribution, competition and public investment.

The challenge will be to encourage innovation without allowing the value generated by AI to become concentrated among a handful of firms while the wider public bears the costs of economic disruption.

The next political battle over AI

History suggests that technological revolutions rarely reshape economies alone. They also reshape politics.

The Industrial Revolution produced labour protections. Electrification transformed public infrastructure. The digital revolution forced governments to rethink privacy, taxation and competition.

Artificial intelligence is likely to do the same.

Whether governments ultimately embrace an AI dividend or reject the idea entirely, Sanders has succeeded in placing a fundamental question on the political agenda: who should benefit from one of the greatest technological transformations in modern history?

The future of artificial intelligence will be determined not only by advances in algorithms or computing power, but by the political choices societies make about how the wealth it generates is distributed.

As AI accelerates, the debate is shifting from what the technology can do to who it ultimately serves. That may prove to be the defining political question of the AI era.