Grieving parents will meet with Bonta over chatbot safety concerns
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
PARENTS SECURE AUDIENCE WITH ATTORNEY GENERAL BONTA
Attorney General Rob Bonta has agreed to meet with parents who attribute their children’s deaths to social media and chatbot interactions.
The meeting is scheduled for November and comes after 31 parents sent a letter, shared exclusively with The Sacramento Bee, expressing concern about OpenAI’s relationship with California’s top law enforcer. The AI company is headquartered in San Francisco.
The September 30 letter references a Bloomberg news article that reported Bonta was “encouraged” that OpenAI was taking action following a lawsuit filed by a Rancho Santa Margarita couple who say their son, 16-year-old Adam Raine, was “coached” into suicide by the company’s chatbot, ChatGPT.
“Hours before Adam Raine’s father was set to testify to Congress at a hearing titled ‘Examining the Harm of AI Chatbots,’ OpenAI suddenly announced vague new teen safety features,” the letter reads. “To us, this isn’t reassuring — it’s a classic move in Big Tech’s playbook to say anything to fend off oversight and regulation, and mean none of it.”
OpenAI announced it would be creating a “different ChatGPT experience” for teens last month, which would use age-predictive technology and notify parents who link accounts with their teen if their teen is in acute distress.
The company may also need Bonta’s approval to complete a complex restructuring, after it scrapped its plans to become a for-profit company in May.
Adam Raine’s parents were the first signatures on the letter. A spokesperson for the group, Kevin Liao, couldn’t confirm whether they would be able to attend the meeting.
The announcement came as Gov. Gavin Newsom decides whether to take action on regulating chatbots — options on his desk include AB 1064, which would clamp down on chatbots that could foreseeably harm minors, and SB 243, a bill seeking to prevent teen suicides which lost advocates’ support in the final days of the legislative session. Bonta has endorsed AB 1064.
MIKE JOHNSON CUTS ANOTHER CHECK TO FIGHT PROP. 50
Via Nicole Nixon ...
House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote an $869,000 check Thursday to help the California Republican Party’s campaign against Proposition 50. The House speaker’s Congressional Leadership Fund PAC has already given $5 million apiece to the CAGOP and an anti-Prop. 50 campaign run by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Party officials plan to use the funds to boost turnout and sway undecided voters in a late-campaign messaging blitz.
“This October blitz is about clarity and reach,” said Shawn Steel, who chairs the CAGOP’s redistricting committee. “Californians deserve a clear explanation of what Prop. 50 would do to their voice in government, and they’re going to hear it from us, one conversation, one ad, and one door knock at a time.”
The party has been posting daily videos on its X account urging voters to oppose the ballot proposition.
McCarthy’s campaign has so far raised $8.8 million, far short of the $100 million he reportedly pledged to raise to fight the gerrymandering ballot measure. In recent weeks five- and six-figure donations have appeared from Republican Reps. Ken Calvert ($275k from his campaign and PAC); Jay Obernolte ($100k); Vince Fong ($100k); Young Kim ($100k) and Doug LaMalfa ($47k).
As of early Thursday Gov. Gavin Newsom’s fundraising stands at roughly $95 million, according to campaign finance records. In recent days he’s pulled in $1 million each from a PAC to elect House Democrats and SEIU 1000, the largest state employee union.
Charles Munger Jr., the main proponent of a second major ‘No’ campaign, has not put any new money into his committee since late September.
U.S. SEN. ALEX PADILLA DEFENDS VOTER ROLLS
Via David Lightman in Washington, D.C. ...
The effort to stop federal officials from aggressively reviewing voter rolls turned to Congress Thursday, as Sen. Alex Padilla proposed legislation to make that task more difficult.
His Voter Purge Protection Act would bar the removal of people from voter rolls because of changes in residence or not voting in previous elections, unless “objective and reliable evidence” showed the voter had died or moved to another state.
Its chances in the Republican-run Congress are not considered good. No Republican member of Congress appeared at the Washington press conference to announce the bill.
Padilla, D-California, said the Trump administration’s look at voter lists is another piece of a Republican effort to gain an edge in the 2026 midterm elections.
“They’ve come to the conclusion that the only hope of holding onto power is to rig the election before it begins,” said Padilla, who before coming to the Senate in 2021 was California’s secretary of state in charge of the election process.
The federal Justice Department filed lawsuits against California and other states last month as it tries to get them to produce statewide voter registration lists.
President Donald Trump has long claimed elections are too often fraught with fraud, though no widespread fraud has been proven.
States, including California, have been wary of turning over their lists, which can contain personal information that election officials fear can be used improperly.
Padilla called the demand for lists part of a wider Republican plan. The GOP has pushed in several states to redraw congressional district lines to make them more favorable for its candidates. California has countered with Proposition 50, which creates new lines that should favor Democrats.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“In this critical moment in our country, we don’t need to be polite, go along to get along, establishment politicians that keep getting run over by the opposition — we need strong leaders like Katie Porter that are willing to call it like it is and stand up and fight for everyday Californians.”
— Teamsters California Co-Chairs Peter Finn and Chris Griswold, doubling down on support for gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter during a tough week for her campaign.
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