Thursday, April 9, 2026

Artificial intelligence may upend the relationship between labor, private enterprise, and American government in the years to come. Enter OpenAI, the AI giant that wants to supply ideas that could compose a new social contract akin to the New Deal.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, on Monday released a new policy roadmap that mixes progressive and free-market proposals into a framework that casts the company as a responsible corporate actor—even as it faces scrutiny over its long-term finances.

In OpenAI’s vision of the future, workers own a stake in AI’s rewards should the staggering sums poured into the rapidly-growing sector pay off. Notable ideas include a public wealth fund seeded by AI firms and later invested into long-term assets. Americans would receive that money as dividends down the road, even if they weren’t shareholders in AI.

“Unless policy keeps pace with technological change, the institutions and safety nets needed to navigate this transition could fall behind,” the company said in the 13-page policy document. “Ensuring that AI expands access, agency, and opportunity is a central challenge ... we should aim for a future where superintelligence benefits everyone.”

The concepts in the document aren’t new. Many of them have circulated in Congress and Washington policy circles for years — usually among progressive lawmakers.

The blueprint draws from ideas long endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a prominent progressive. He’s strongly criticized AI development as another path for Silicon Valley executives to grow their wealth and power at the expense of the middle class. Notably, Sanders supports a pause on data center construction.

The overlap between what Sanders supports and OpenAI’s platform includes:

OpenAI founder Sam Altman emphasized that the blueprint was intended to stir debate on how to soften a disruption to the labor force that some analysts and lawmakers believe is imminent.

“The goal here is really to start a conversation,” Altman told Axios. “That said, the receptiveness from all directions to the fact that we are going to have to try some different things and the sooner we can start talking through them, the better, has surprised me.”

Spending on developing AI isn’t slowing down anytime soon and fears of an AI bubble are fading, at least for now. OpenAI recently announced it raised $12 billion in a funding round that put its valuation at about $852 billion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world ahead of a possible blockbuster initial public offering that may come at year’s end.

Still, the company hasn’t shaken off questions about its ability to turn a profit and justify its eye-popping valuation. In February, OpenAI reset expectations and said it planned $600 billion in spending commitments through 2030, cutting its initial forecast by over half. In 2025, OpenAI only generated $13 billion in revenue.

“The idea that permeates this paper is that AI is going to create a ton of wealth when today it's spending a ton of wealth,” Matt Calkins, CEO of enterprise software firm Appian, told Quartz. He favored some pieces of the OpenAI document, such as incentivizing an expansion of the energy supply that accommodates power-hungry data centers by reducing red tape.

That part of the platform has steadily gained traction in Capitol Hill. Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are among those who put forward legislation obligating data centers to develop their own power sources. Still, most of OpenAI’s platform isn’t likely to become law under the Trump administration.

That’s far from the only attempt from the tech sector at steering the national debate around the AI it is developing.

Tech executives are gearing up to spend big in this year’s midterms as Republicans seek to hang onto control of the House and Senate. OpenAI President Greg Brockman is among those pouring at least $100 million into Leading the Future, a pro-AI superPAC that backs candidates in both parties favoring a one-size-fits-all approach to AI regulation.

Last month, the group notched some successes across key primaries in North Carolina, Texas, and Illinois. Leading the Future’s list of GOP endorsements hasn’t escaped notice from progressives.

“Now they just need to stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat candidates who run on these policies!” Jeremy Slevin, a senior advisor to Sanders, wrote on social media referring to the OpenAI platform. Sanders' Senate office didn’t return a request for comment.

AI’s impact on the labor market is beginning to emerge in economic data. Analysts from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan said in recent reports that AI has both destroyed and created new jobs in its wake.

So far, employment disruption is limited: Goldman said AI substitution in certain sectors like phone operations elevated the unemployment rate by 0.16% over the past year.

OpenAI has joined other tech firms like Anthropic in putting forward proposals to soften AI’s blow on the labor market. Much of the blueprint is a starting point for debate, and it’ll be up to policymakers to take it up or cast it aside as a PR play.

—Joseph Zeballos-Roig

The labor-force participation rate dropped to 61.9% in March, the lowest level since 1977. The figure represents the share of working-age adults either employed or looking for work.