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

The strongest labor evidence discussed does not yet support broad AI-driven unemployment. Vanguard data showed AI-exposed occupations growing jobs 1.7% versus 0.8% and wages 3.8% versus 0.7%, while Yale Budget Lab found no discernible labor-market disruption 33 months after ChatGPT.

Robotaxis are nevertheless already changing hiring decisions in major cities. Jason Calacanis said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told him Uber stopped recruiting drivers in Los Angeles and San Francisco where Waymo is widespread; Uber is also offering drivers data-labeling work after buying a labeling company.

A surprising funding chain has given organized AI critics substantial institutional reach. Sacks said Vitalik Buterin’s donated meme coins became roughly $600 million for the Future of Life Institute, which then funded journalism fellowships, academic grants and organizations opposing data centers.

Major AI companies appear to be preparing tangible public-benefit initiatives to counter political backlash. Chamath Palihapitiya said company leaders had “gotten the message,” were already working on multiple solutions and expected visible moves in the new year, with education at the top of the list.

Recent US employment weakness was concentrated in government payrolls rather than the private sector. From September through November, private employment rose 121,000 while government employment fell 162,000; Sacks additionally cited a 10.7% decline in the federal workforce during 2025, from 2.4 million to 2.15 million.

China’s semiconductor push is a systematic state-backed effort to eliminate lithography bottlenecks, not merely copy ASML. Friedberg described a roughly $48 billion Phase III fund targeting manufacturing choke points; Reuters said China’s EUV prototype had produced no working chips yet, while Friedberg predicted Huawei could deploy undisclosed Chinese lithography in 2026.

California’s proposed billionaire tax has become intertwined with real relocation decisions among the hosts and their peers. The episode said Sacks had already bought an Austin house, another host was using his agent, and a major Hollywood producer had moved to Texas and planned to make films there.

The episode closed with a report that Trump had just signed an order moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. The hosts treated the change as overdue, arguing that marijuana should not remain federally classified alongside drugs such as heroin.