FILE — California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB1046, a hotly contested bill that would have been the nation’s strictest AI safety law. (AP Photo/Ricci Pedroncelli, File) Rich Pedroncelli/AP/FR171957 AP Hide Caption
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California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed a bill that would create the nation’s most far-reaching regulations for the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry.
California lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the bill, known as SB 1047. The bill was seen as a potential blueprint for a national AI law.
The measure would make technology companies legally liable for damage caused by AI models. Additionally, the bill would require tech companies to enable a “kill switch” on their AI technology in case their systems are misused or fraudulently committed.
Newsom called the bill “well-intentioned,” but noted that its requirements would require “draconian” regulations that would be onerous for the state’s big artificial intelligence companies.
In his veto message, Newsom said the bill focuses too much on the biggest, most powerful AI models and could have an equally disruptive impact on smaller startups. Ta.
“Small, specialized models could emerge as just as dangerous, if not more so, than those covered by SB 1047, at the expense of the very innovation that promotes progress in the public interest.” may be suppressed,” Newsom wrote.
California Sen. Scott Wiener, a co-author of the bill, criticized Newsom’s move, saying the veto would roll back responsibility for artificial intelligence.
“This veto leaves us with the disturbing reality that companies seeking to develop extremely powerful technologies face no binding restrictions from U.S. policymakers, especially if they have any meaningful impact.” “Given Congress’ continued paralysis in regulating the technology industry in such a way,” Wiener wrote to X.
The now-defeated bill would have forced industry to conduct very robust safety tests on AI models. Without such a requirement, the industry would be left to police itself, Wiener wrote Sunday.
“Large AI labs are doing admirable work to monitor and mitigate these risks, but voluntary efforts by industry are not enforceable and do not yield positive outcomes for the public. Very rarely.”
Many leading Silicon Valley companies, including venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI, and industry groups representing Google and Meta, oppose the bill, saying it would slow down AI development and inhibit the growth of early-stage companies. lobbied against the.
“SB 1047 will threaten that growth, slow the pace of innovation, and cause California’s world-class engineers and entrepreneurs to leave the state for greater opportunities elsewhere,” said OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer. Jason Kwon wrote in a letter to Wiener last month. .
But other technology leaders also supported the bill, including Elon Musk and pioneering AI scientists like Jeffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, who signed a letter urging Newsom to sign it.
“We believe that the most powerful AI models could pose serious risks in the near future, including expanded access to biological weapons and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.For leading AI companies, , it is both feasible and appropriate to test whether the most powerful AI models have the potential to cause serious harm and to take reasonable safeguards against these risks.” Dozens of former and current employees of AI companies wrote.
In a post to He said it was a “setback.”
Other states, such as Colorado and Utah, have narrowly tailored regulations to address the potential for AI to perpetuate bias in employment and health care decisions, as well as other AI-related consumer protection concerns. We have enacted laws.
Newsom recently signed other AI bills into law, including one to crack down on the spread of deepfakes during elections. The other would prevent an actor’s likeness from being duplicated by AI without their consent.
Even though billions of dollars have been poured into the development of AI, and it has permeated every corner of our daily lives, lawmakers in Washington are still struggling to protect people from the potential harms of AI and It does not propose any federal legislation to monitor rapid development. .
