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For decades, the senator has argued that concentrated wealth threatened American democracy. Now he's betting that frustration with Big Tech, billionaires, and unchecked AI is reaching a tipping point. It's hard to believe Bernie Sanders . Not because the longtime Vermont senator bears the hallmarks of a liar. Yes, he's a career politician, but the 84-year-old progressive torchbearer counts more viral memes than scandals to his name. Rather, it's hard to believe Bernie Sanders because, for decades, he's told Americans that this country can radically change, while championing ideas too far afield from the status quo to really have a chance. He wants to bring billionaires to heel, for one. And implement universal, government-run health care. If Sanders had his way, it wouldn't even exist. I believe it, and WIRED champions it. Sanders, though, is now hard at work adding one more big, improbable change to the pile: Since 2023, he's been advocating for firm and decisive regulation of the AI industry . In March of this year, Sanders and his frequent collaborator, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, proposed legislation that would halt data center construction until a series of safeguards are implemented. In June, Sanders announced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would essentially tax AI's richest companies and result in direct payments to American citizens. I wanted to talk to Sanders about those bills, and his perspective on AI more broadly. On a deeper level, though, I was curious about how Sanders sees the barriers to regulation--from tech oligarchs and deep-pocketed super PACs, to a federal administration happier to enrich itself via technology than actually govern it--and whether he thinks those seemingly intractable obstacles can be overcome. After a few months of haranguing, Sanders agreed to sit down, which is how I found myself in his modest DC campaign office watching the senator--thoughtful, genuine, vociferous as ever--grapple in real time with what he describes as "the most consequential, transformational technology in the history of humanity." Sanders and I spoke on Tuesday, June 23, as the New York Democratic primary was underway. I woke up the next day, our conversation echoing in my head, to find that a coalition of democratic socialists had swept their respective elections and sent party stalwarts into an existential tailspin. A few hours later, New Jersey representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, became the most mainstream member of the party to publicly support an AI data center moratorium .

Tesla CEO Elon Musk could receive the largest corporate pay package in history worth as much as $878bn if he meets certain performance targets. Here is what this means, and how Musk could become history's first trillionaire. Musk won a Tesla shareholder vote on Thursday, with more than 75 percent in favour, during the company's annual general meeting at the electric carmaker's factory in Austin, Texas. Under this plan, Musk could be given stock worth $1 trillion over the next decade if he hits certain performance targets. However, he would be required to repay some of this to the company - bringing it down to $878bn.

Welcome back to In the Loop, TIME's new twice-weekly newsletter about the world of AI. If you're reading this in your browser, you can subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox. Let's say, sometime in the next few years, artificial intelligence automates most of the jobs that humans currently do. If that happens, how can we avoid societal collapse? This question, once the stuff of science fiction, is now very real.

SoftBank Group Corp. has secured pledges from Microsoft Corp. and other investors of around $108 billion for a second Vision Fund aimed at investing in technology firms. The Japanese conglomerate itself plans to invest $38 billion in the fund, it said in a statement. Others set to join include Apple Inc. and Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (Foxconn) -- both investors in the first fund. Notable for their absence on the list of state and corporate backers were the sovereign wealth funds of the two countries that formed the cornerstone of its first fund: Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, as well as investment bank Goldman Sachs. SoftBank said it is still talking to potential investors and that it expects the fund's anticipated capital to grow.

And they have changed dramatically over the last three decades. First it was the military. Today, another chapter begins: massive funds, with billions to spend and often linked to governments, are technology's new masters. The undisputed leader is Japan's SoftBank, which counts Uber, WeWork, Alibaba and Nvidia among its investments. Its companies make awe-inspiring robot dogs (Boston Dynamics) and offer dog walking as a service (Wag) for real canines.

Uber plans to map the world, freeing itself from reliance on Google Maps and paving the way for its own fleet of driverless cars. Uber's mapping vehicles hit American roads last year, were introduced in Mexico earlier this summer, and will eventually extend to the other 76 countries where the ride-hailing service operates, gathering precise data on pickup and drop-off locations and traffic patterns. Following an influx of $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, Uber says it will invest $500 million in developing its in-house maps, the Financial Times reported. "With autonomous vehicles, maps are going to be fundamental," Brian McClendon, a vice president at Uber, told The Atlantic. "And the maps that are needed for autonomous vehicles are beyond anything that's being created today by any third party." An expert in geospatial data visualization, Mr. McClendon led Google Maps for more than a decade before jumping to Uber to lead its mapping projects last June.

Six months worth of funding deals thus far in 2016 indicate that investments in robotics - equity fundings, and acquisitions - are accelerating, particularly in big deals involving Chinese money. Although Uber isn't really a robot company, they acquired a whole robotics department from CMU and have plans to work with car manufacturers to make unmanned Uber cars in the near future, hence they are included in this recap. Just last week Uber announced a strategic partnership - which included an investment of an undetermined amount - with Toyota. Uber has taken a 3.5 billion investment from a government that effectively prohibits women from driving--let alone driving for Uber. Uber also has accepted a 3.5 billion investment from a government that requires women to have male guardians.