JAKARTA - OpenAI is said to propose giving 5 percent of the company's shares to the US state wealth fund. This fund is an investment vehicle managed by the state for public interest.
TechCrunch, reported Friday, July 3, citing the Financial Times (FT), reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proposed the idea. In the proposal, other AI companies will also provide a similar share of shares. However, the details of the scheme are still unclear.
According to the FT report, the stock donation was intended to maintain good relations with the government and dampen political pressure.
Similar discussions were previously reported by CNBC in June and later confirmed by President Donald Trump. He said he had discussed the idea of giving part of the company's ownership to the American public.
In that way, the US public is essentially a partner of these companies.
However, these talks are still at an early stage. Any formal steps are likely to require congressional approval. That means the path is not simple.
The idea of a public AI fund has also been discussed openly by Altman. OpenAI then detailed the idea in a policy paper entitled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age which was released in April.
In the document, OpenAI proposes a public wealth fund that can invest directly in AI laboratories and companies using AI technology.
"The proceeds from the Fund can be distributed directly to the public, so that more people can feel the benefits of AI-driven growth, regardless of their initial wealth or access to capital," the document states.
A stronger proposal came from Senator Bernie Sanders in June. He proposed a one-time tax of 50 percent on AI company shares. The shares collected will be put into a public wealth fund.
The bill, named the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, will apply to AI companies that are considered to be systemically important, namely companies that are considered to have a major impact on the economy, infrastructure, or public interests. The coverage includes companies that are engaged in data centers, infrastructure, and robotics.
In Sanders' proposal, companies such as Google and SpaceX that only make AI a part of their business can separate non-AI units to avoid the tax.
However, the bill has not yet entered the committee discussion stage.
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