Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) raised concerns about the advent of physical AI on Sunday, slamming companies like Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER), as well as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, for wanting to replace workers with AI.
‘We Are Not Ready’
In a post on the social media platform X, Sanders shared that driverless vehicle companies were “expanding rapidly,” which put jobs like “truckers, cab drivers, Uber drivers” at risk of being phased out. “Jeff Bezos is seeking $100 billion to put robots into factories,” he said, sharing that factory workers could be without a job, too. “We are not ready for what's coming.”
Sanders said that Bezos’s vision of automating factories would mean “ending working-class people making a living in manufacturing.” He also said that driverless vehicles expanding all over the country would result in the loss of “millions of decent-paying jobs” in transportation.
The Vermont Independent has been a vocal critic of AI and its effects on the job market, recently raising alarm over telecom operator Verizon's (NYSE:VZ) CEO Dan Schulman‘s comments, where he predicted over 20%-30% job cuts as AI adoption grows.
Uber’s Robotaxi Push
Uber has been aggressively expanding its Robotaxi and driverless vehicle strategy as the company singled out a reported $10 billion commitment into the sector, of which Uber plans to allocate $2.5 billion in investments to acquire equity in Robotaxi operators. The remaining $7.5 billion is reportedly aimed at expanding its Robotaxi fleet.
Further illustrating the push, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, during the company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings call with investors, shared that self-driving represented a "trillion-dollar" total addressable market (TAM) for Uber, reiterating the company’s partnership model.
Elon Musk’s Pro-Human AI Vision
Meanwhile, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk was hailed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for keeping humans at the forefront of the AI vision amid SpaceX‘s partnership with artificial intelligence company Anthropic, following reports that Musk would rescind computing power to companies that bring harm to humans with their technology.
Musk, during March, shared that Tesla would also work towards expanding its human workforce as the automaker planned to incorporate AI into its workflow. The billionaire had said that the “output per human at Tesla” would get “nutty high” due to AI adoption.
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