Rep. Ro Khanna proposes seven principles for democratic AI regulation

On February 20, I was at Stanford University with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Talking to more than 1,600 students about the defining issues of our time: inequality and artificial intelligence. We had the largest attendance since President Barack Obama visited campus in 2015. I laid out my vision for a new technology social contract and seven seminal principles for a more democratic AI. Here was the gist of what I was going to say.

We live in a new gilded age. Believing they would be heroic conquerors in a different age, tech billionaires are seizing control of our economy, media, and politics.

Most Americans feel they have little say in shaping their own or their children’s future. This has contributed to anger, resentment, and hopeless cynicism throughout our nation.

A nation cannot survive with islands of prosperity and seas of despair.

Professor Gabriel Zucman has shown that today’s concentration of wealth is the highest in our nation’s history. Approximately 19 billionaires hold $3.4 trillion; This equates to 12.5 percent of all goods and services produced in the United States in a year. That’s nearly three times what the wealthiest Americans were worth compared to the size of the economy at the height of the Gilded Age.

Excessive wealth forms an unholy alliance with power, leading to double tiers of justice and denying ordinary citizens an equal voice in our democratic experience.

We see the future from here. We know what’s coming in a way that most politicians and D.C. bureaucrats don’t. The question we need to ask ourselves is: What kind of future will we build? Will this future be just for the tech lords or for all of us?

We’ve gathered this town hall at the epicenter of this concentration of wealth and AI innovation. The 50-mile radius around my district, which includes Stanford, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Broadcom, and Tesla, is worth over $18 trillion. Its market capitalization is almost 1/3 of the entire US stock market. One-third of our nation’s wealth comes from here and the region surrounding the Congressional district.

Representative Ro Khanna, California, sits during a town hall event on February 20, 2026 in Stanford, California. The theme of the town hall is “Who Controls AI’s Future: The Oligarchs or the People?” (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)

We see the future from here. We know what’s coming in a way that most politicians and D.C. bureaucrats don’t. And the question we need to ask ourselves is: What kind of future will we build? Will this future be just for the tech lords or for all of us?

TRUMP WANTS FEDERAL AI STANDARDS, ENDING STATE ‘PATCHWORK’ REGULATIONS THAT ‘THREATEN’ ECONOMIC GROWTH

That’s why I’m calling for a new technology social contract. To whom much is given, at least a little is expected.

The truth is that our taxpayer dollars and philanthropic donations funded the development of artificial intelligence at Dartmouth, MIT, and Stanford with ImageNet and the Digital Library Project that helped birth Google.

Let’s acknowledge that tech entrepreneurs take risks and demonstrate ingenuity and imagination in scaling and adopting technology. But like every successful generation of American entrepreneurs over the last two centuries, they are built on a foundation of public investment.

Representative Ro Khanna, California, speaks at a town hall event on February 20, 2026 in Stanford, California. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)

AI INCREASES RISKS TO NATIONAL SECURITY. HERE’S HOW TO DO IT RIGHT

Therefore, we should not be asking what America can do for Silicon Valley, but what Silicon Valley should do for America.

The AI ​​revolution could help treat cancer and rare diseases, reduce housing costs, make it easier to start businesses and factories, meet our energy needs, and reduce medical and education costs for the working class.

But in the hands of a few billionaires, the priority is to eliminate jobs, make profits, and make us dependent on excessive content that transforms us from citizens to warriors.

PALANTIR’S SHYAM SANKAR: AMERICANS ARE BEING ‘LIED’ ABOUT AI DISPLACEMENT FEARS

I’m not an AI accelerator.

I’m not an AI disaster.

I am an AI democrat.

SCOOP: TRUMP BRINGS BIG TECHNOLOGY TO THE WHITE HOUSE TO Cut Electricity Costs Amid AI Boom

That’s why I want to lay out seven principles for what a democratic AI would look like. This vision is part of a broader call for patriotic renewal in our nation for shared prosperity, not for oligarchic takeover and domination. I have a vision of a new economic patriotism where we have a thriving middle class with good jobs in rural communities, factory towns, suburban neighborhoods, and our urban centers.

Here’s what this means for AI in America.

First, we need to keep people in the loop.

AI POWER PLAYERS pour cash into COMPETITIVE primaries AS 2026 MIDTERMS WARM UP

We need real protection against mass displacement, starting with our 3.5 million truck drivers. Although driverless trucks improve safety and efficiency, human drivers still need to remain, just as pilots must fly our planes. This will allow us to develop artificial intelligence that augments human capacity rather than eliminating jobs.

Second, every large company has to negotiate with its employees.

Unions or elected representatives should ensure that displaced workers can move into new value-creating roles and share in the productivity gains of AI through higher wages, profit sharing and shorter work weeks.

WE ARE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE CORRIDOR. BUT WE KNOW THAT AMERICA HAS TO WIN ITS ARTIFICIAL RACE OR

Third, we must correct the anti-people bias of the tax code.

Hiring humans comes with payroll taxes, while robots get accelerated depreciation. Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu estimates that companies pay approximately zero tax on digital tools, whereas they pay around 30% tax between employer and employee when hiring workers. This doesn’t make any sense. We should make it easier to hire workers, not AI agents.

We also need to create an annual data dividend so that every American can receive a check from the data generated by both private companies and our government activities such as public health, traffic management, and policy research.

SHYAM SANKAR FROM PALANTIR: USA MUST USE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS A ‘SLINDER’ AGAINST CHINA, OR WE MUST FACE ECONOMIC DEFEAT

Fourth, we must initiate Future Workforce Management.

We must seize this moment of anxiety among white-collar and blue-collar families alike and respond with the boldest, most patriotic business agenda in generations.

Funded by a modest wealth tax on the trillions created here and a token tax on artificial intelligence used by labor-replacing businesses, this program will funnel Americans into working in public service. The initiative will drive moonshot projects that expand the boundaries of science, clean energy and biotechnology.

Rep. Pressley Is Introducing AI CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, AIMED ‘SPECIFICALLY’ TO PROTECT BLACK, BROWN, AND ORGANIZED PEOPLE

It will mobilize young people to rebuild cities, educate our children, provide child care and elder care, and strengthen small businesses in every community.

And we will open 1,000 new business schools and institutes of technology; Thus, the next generation will be prepared for careers that artificial intelligence cannot replace.

Fifth, data centers must serve the communities that power them.

CHINA Moves Forward on Artificial Intelligence — TRUMP WARNED AMERICA COULD NOT RULE HIM TO DEFEAT

Currently, data centers are one-way data collection centers from communities to the richest corporations.

This must end.

Tech companies need to provide local communities with computing resources for schools and libraries, create local tech jobs, fund startups, and use renewable energy and dry cooling technology. For a balanced solution, we should look at what Singapore is doing with its data centers and invest in greatly increasing clean energy supply. Most importantly, tech companies should pay full utility bills instead of passing the costs on to our communities.

IS AI OUT OF CONTROL? HOW A SINGLE ARTICLE SENDS SHOCK WAVES WITH AN APOCALYPSE WARNING

Sixth, we must prevent AI from weaponizing our public discourse.

We can unite across party lines to stop interaction-based algorithms from spreading hate. End Section 230 protections for violent content and require opening up platforms so Americans can connect freely.

Seventh, we need to organize artificial intelligence so that it is used to improve humanity, not to harm it.

MIKE DAVIS: CONGRESS MUST STOP BIG TECH’S AI AMNESTY SCAM BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

We need clear and enforceable guardrails, along with mandatory third-party verification of advanced AI models, to ensure that this powerful technology does not cause serious societal harm. This needs to be more than just voluntary collaboration happening at the AI ​​Standards and Innovation Center at NIST at Commerce. We need a robust federal agency to regulate artificial intelligence the same way we regulate nuclear energy or federal aviation.

We need a program with the courage and scale of the New Deal, a democratic project of our time. Not to slow innovation, but to ensure its benefits reach every American.

The United States will benefit from our AI models’ access to global markets by ensuring the security of our AI models, preventing agency AI from causing harm, and ensuring data privacy.

CLICK FOR OTHER OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS

These principles are the beginning of a framework to ensure that AI does not lead to a concentration of wealth and power that will further fragment our democracy. If we maintain the status quo or embrace poll-tested incrementalism, we will leave out ordinary Americans and modern prosperity will be in the hands of only the privileged.

I’m not going to sit back and watch this happen.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION

We need a program with the courage and scale of the New Deal, a democratic project of our time. Not to slow innovation, but to ensure its benefits reach every American. Essentially, it’s a program that says not to surrender to the tech lords. None. It just means restoring AI to the American people.

So my challenge to Stanford students (emerging tech and business leaders) is simple. The future should not be written by AI agents serving San Francisco billionaires. Like every other pivotal moment in American history, this book must be written by all of us, together, in a way that unites our differences and gives a new national purpose of economic renewal and independence for every American in every part of our beloved nation.

This column is adapted from remarks made by Representative Ro Khanna at a town hall event held with Senator Bernie Sanders at Stanford University on February 20, 2026.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM REP. RO KHANNA

Related Article