Should the US government take equity stakes in major American AI companies?

Yes (25%) – "It would provide immediate incentives to Ai companies to specialize their business models to benefit all Americans, not just their largest investors and CEO's."

• "The President's version of AI investment is a small and good one as long as it is a strict investment and doesn't include any government meddling in the companies operation. Sanders' idea is simply a version of nationalizing a business which is a sure way to ruin it, stifle innovation and restrict entry; useless and regressive, like most any other 'socialist' doctrine or idea."

"I would support a proposal if it was crafted by Congress with Bernie Sanders involved and that also involves paying down the national deficit. If done only by Trump, it will likely be through Executive Order and will benefit his loyalists."

No (53%) – "The economics of the large AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic don't make sense and they need to succeed or fail on their own financial merit. A public stake would all but guarantee the risk will be passed on to tax payers."

• "I think the conflict if interest is too great. Will cities be able to say no to one of these AI companies if they want to build a data center? Will AI used by government agencies become national security risks? What will happen with all that money-will the government hoard it or will it actually get shared amongst the people as an income supplement? What will happen when the AI companies lose money-will we have to bail it out?"

"The government is to govern what comes in and out of our community and society with policy. Have answers to protect and guide the people through this new technology. Government needs to stop being judge and jury with regulation and profit sharing. Keep the fundamental concepts of competition and open markets. Companies should not worry about the government looking to grab dollars from the company. That’s what taxes are."

• "The government does not need ownership in anything they are going to have to be asked to bail out later. Because it's to big to fail. If the government is going to tax AI companies tax them at a high rate and take the money and use it to pay for the national debt."

"To a degree, having the government take ownership at any level of a privately developed proprietary model would run counter to the 'takings clause' of the 5th Amendment. In essence, the government would be obligated to pay the companies the market value of their percentage of ownership, which could be billions of dollars, and, in normal times, would be an impractical and too expensive undertaking. Of course, we currently have to realize that these are not normal times that we are living in."

Unsure/other (22%) – "If we want to stop pretending that our entire existence is built around capitalism, I would agree ownership shares would be good. But so long as we seem to want to let private enterprise be the public engine of change and wealth, then no, the government should not own shares, and should not be looked at as the entity to bail out bad investments."

• "For now I feel that the current regime having a stake in AI would only benefit 47, his donors, and his cronies. Also worried about what the government would do with it once they have their foot in the door."