If California Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t sign these AI bills, be afraid | Opinion
Tech companies are intrigued by artificial intelligence not for its capability to innovate our world, but its ability to make them a profit.
OpenAI, Google, Meta, and others have unleashed AI onto the public with few guardrails or transparency for how it should be used safely.
At this time, when Americans are dangerously uninformed about AI, California’s state government could be a place to create laws that make it safer because the federal government isn’t interested. During a POLITICO AI & Tech Summit last week, Sriram Krishnan, the White House senior adviser on AI said:
“We don’t want California to set the rules for AI across the country.”
In July, the Trump Administration unveiled the AI Action Plan. Among its functions was to remove “onerous Federal regulations that hinder AI development and deployment, and seek private sector input on rules to remove.” It also promises that the government only contracts with large AI developers that are “objective and free from top-down ideological bias.”
Trump and Republicans believe they are in an AI race with other countries. If that’s the case, then the AI race is a dangerous one. Pursuing an AI plan that benefits only large developers who comply with their political will and eliminates regulations provides more leeway for the rabid dog to harm the public.
No one is worried about spellcheck or AutoCorrect, which are two well-known uses of AI. What they fear is a scenario similar to Terminator 2, the movie where a large corporation becomes greedy for power and uses AI as a puppet to harm society. They worry about the information they provide to the intelligence and what it could do with it.
Of the AI regulation bills on the desk of Gov. Gavin Newom, Senate Bill 53 addresses fundamental issues related to AI.
Creating competition and reinforcing transparency
The AI regulation bill, authored by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), establishes a much-needed structure around AI technology and who can be held accountable for it. With Newsom’s signature, it would require AI companies with the most advanced technology to have safety and security frameworks in place, protect whistleblowers, and allow the public to report safety incidents to the state Attorney General.
Anthropic, one of the pioneer companies to use AI, is on board with the regulation bill and praises its ability to ensure a secure framework for developers and users.
“SB 53’s transparency requirements will have an important impact on frontier AI safety,” the company, who endorsed this legislation, said in a statement on its website. “Without it, labs with increasingly powerful models could face growing incentives to dial back their own safety and disclosure programs in order to compete. But with SB 53, developers can compete while ensuring they remain transparent about AI capabilities that pose risks to public safety, creating a level playing field where disclosure is mandatory, not optional.”
The bill also holds larger companies that develop the most advanced AI systems accountable, while exempting startups and smaller companies that are less likely to create more sophisticated models.
Newsom has largely stood with Big Tech when they oppose legislation. Last year, Newsom vetoed a tougher AI bill also authored by Wiener that would have made large AI models liable for “critical harms” it caused.
Moreover, other bills are helping create healthy AI regulation, like the Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act, authored by Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-San Ramon). It prohibits AI products that pose a clear risk to the emotional health of children. The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), which represents software and information companies, urged Newsom last week to veto the bill, claiming that it would risk the AI’s ability to innovate in education.
If Newsom continues to side with Big Tech, it all but assures that substantial laws focusing on AI safety will not happen during the rest of his term as governor. If that happens, and California is not a player in AI safety, then the use and possible misuse of artificial intelligence will be frightening for all of us.
