Bernie Sanders: Stop All AI, China's EUV Breakthrough, Inflation Down, Golden Age in 2026?

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
All right, everybody, welcome back to your favorite podcast, the number one podcast, in fact, in the entire universe, the AllIn podcast with your besties, we're all here, it's the original quartet. Everybody loves when the core four are here, and we have a donkett for you today. Guys, we got to start out with Bernie Sanders. I know this is becoming a bit repetitive, but AI is the topic. We reached a new level of retardation this week that we cannot avoid.
Bernie Sanders has a major de-cell pitch, a moratorium on new AI data centers. Here's his argument, number one, the billionaires are pushing AI because they want more money and power. Number two, it's going to be massive unemployment. And he cites Gates, Dario, Elon, saying that AI would replace most jobs. Number three, he has an interesting point, actually. AI is harmful to kids because it decreases social interaction. Actually, we kind of agree with that one, I think, across the board. But here's his pitch, Sacks. His pitch is, you want your kids using these chatbots.

**David Sacks** (1:09)
No, I've talked to my kids about it.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:12)
We'll get into it.

**David Sacks** (1:12)
We can get into it. But I've talked to them about it. Look, if you actually look at the data, if you look at what kids are doing, it's so much more interactive and engaging for them to talk to their friends on Snap or to watch videos on TikTok. Those things are super engaging. Whereas, doing research on an AI chatbot is just way less engaging. And you see this in the data. So I'm not saying there's not an issue there. You want to pay attention to the way that these technologies are shaping the minds of young kids. But I think people get a little bit confused. What they're really talking about is social media. And then they attribute all the ill of social media over to these new AI chat apps. And they are a little different.
When I asked my kids like, how much do you use these things? Are they addictive? They said, no, they're more just really useful. It's like Google. It's like I couldn't do school without it.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:05)
Yeah, there's two pieces here. One, using AI to be smarter and to learn stuff and ask questions. Absolutely fantastic, phenomenal. I think we'll all agree on that. There is, and I don't know if this is actually what he was referencing, but there's character AI in a long tail of spicy chats where people, we talked about getting one-shotted and these parasocial relationships. That's I think what he's referring to, but maybe I'm reading it wrong. But let's get into it here. His pitch is that we need to slow down so that, quote, democracy can catch up and that Congress should put a moratorium on new data centers. That's his solution. He got roasted, obviously, on social media for this. It's the most absurd, I think, solution to what are valid concerns. Friend of the pod, Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, he, I guess, supported it a bit. Then he replied to me and says his concerns are not as acute and that he just wants to make sure we use renewable energy, which I guess is a fine position to have. Polymarket put up a little market here. AI data center moratorium passed before 2027 Yeah, we'll see if that comes true or not. But hey, Sacks, you are our SGE. Sacks are SGE. This is your time to shine.
You have framed the AI debate as we can't lose to China. Bernie framed it as not letting the billionaire class get more power and money by eliminating American jobs. And last week on this very program, Tucker framed it as what are Americans going to get out of this, right? That was the framing as of December of 2025 So here's your chance, Sacks. Why should Americans, who have some concerns about losing their jobs, care about beating China? Why should they care about that, Sacks?

**David Sacks** (3:56)
Why should they care about beating China? Because AI is a profound technology. It's going to have huge economic and national security implications. And the thing that Bernie gets wrong is that he can't stop the progress. I mean, he can't stop China from making progress. We can stop progress in the US, but it's not going to stop China from advancing these technologies. A lot of this is just math. And just because we stopped doesn't mean China is going to stop. So this would be the biggest own goal ever if we took our leadership in the AI race and just handed it to China. But look, I appreciate Bernie's honesty in a way, because he is actually telling the truth about what he wants. And I remember just a week ago when President Trump signed an executive order to advance a national AI framework, a lot of critics and a lot of Democrats were saying this was a violation of states' rights and we need to support the states in regulating AI. And here Bernie is acknowledging that this is not about states' rights, because he's saying that there needs to be a moratorium on new data centers, even if the states want them. So he doesn't support states' rights either. He just wants all the progress to stop. And I think this is really the truth of the matter, is that all this talk about states' rights or affordability, it's all a red herring. And what's really going on is there's a large and growing contingent of people who just want all the progress to stop. But again, we can't stop China from making progress. All they would be doing is seeding leadership of this AI race to China. What people like Bernie really want is they want the US to become like Europe. You know, Europe has half the share of global GDP that they had 30 years ago.