California Government. Gavin NewsomA Democrat on Sunday vetoed a bill creating safeguards for large artificial intelligence models, which would have been the first such legislation in the country.
The governor’s veto has dealt a major blow to efforts to build guardrails around AI and its rapid growth with little oversight. The Associated PressThe legislation faced strong opposition from startups, tech giants and several Democratic lawmakers.
Newsom earlier this month said at Dreamforce, an annual conference hosted by software giant Salesforce, that California should take the lead in regulating AI because the federal government has failed to put in place safeguards, but that the proposal would “adversely impact the industry.” Could.” ,
SB 1047, the governor said, could harm domestic industry by setting stricter requirements.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill to create safeguards for large artificial intelligence models in the Golden State. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Newsom said in a statement, “Despite well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether the AI system is deployed in a high-risk environment, involving critical decision making or the use of sensitive data. ” “Instead, the bill imposes stringent standards for even the most basic functions – unless a larger system enforces it. I don’t think this is the best way to protect the public from the real dangers posed by technology. “
Newsom instead announced that the state would partner with several industry experts to develop safety measures Powerful AI models,
SB 1047 would require companies to test their models and publicly disclose their security protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated for harmful purposes, such as, for example, taking out the state’s electric grid. or helping to create chemical weapons, scenarios that experts say may be possible in the future as the industry continues to grow rapidly.
The law would also have provided whistleblower protections to industry workers.
Democratic state Senator Scott Weiner, who authored the bill, said the veto was “a blow to everyone who believes in oversight of large corporations that are making critical decisions that affect the public’s safety and welfare and the future of the planet.” We do. “
“Companies developing advanced AI systems acknowledge that the risks posed to the public by these models are real and rapidly growing,” he said in a statement. “While large AI labs have made commendable commitments to monitoring and mitigating these risks, the truth is that voluntary commitments from industry are not enforceable and rarely work well for the public.”
Wiener said the debate surrounding the bill has helped shine a light on the issue of AI security, and he will continue to push to advance safeguards around the technology.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk supported the measure.
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Newsom announced that, instead of adopting legislation, the state would partner with several industry experts to develop safeguards for powerful AI models. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)
The proposal is one of several bills passed by the state legislature this year seeking to regulate AI, combat deepfakes and protect workers. State lawmakers said California should take action this year, pointing to the consequences of failing to rein in social media companies when they could have had the opportunity.
Supporters of the bill said it could introduce some transparency and accountability around large-scale AI models, as developers and experts say they still do not have a full understanding of how AI models behave.
The bill seeks to address systems that require high levels of computing power and more than $100 million to build. No current AI models meet that criteria, but some experts say that could change within the next year.
“This is due to the massive investment within the industry,” former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlow, who stepped down earlier this year over the company’s disregard for AI risks, told The Associated Press. “This is an insane amount of power to unaccountably control any private company, and it’s also incredibly risky.”
Supporters of the measure said the US lags behind Europe in regulating growing technology, raising concerns about job losses, misinformation, privacy violations and automation bias. The California bill was not as comprehensive as Europe’s rules, but supporters say it would have been a step in the right direction.
Last year, several major AI companies voluntarily agreed to follow safeguards set by the White House, including testing and sharing information about their models. The California bill, according to its supporters, would require AI developers to follow the same requirements as those safeguards.
But critics of the measure argued it would hurt technology and stifle innovation in the Golden State. The proposal would have discouraged AI developers from investing in larger models or sharing open-source software, according to critics, including U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Two other AI proposals, which also faced opposition from the tech industry, did not pass before the legislative deadline last month. The bill would require AI developers to label AI-generated content and prohibit discrimination by AI tools used to make employment decisions.
California State Senator Scott Wiener said the debate surrounding the bill has helped shine a light on the issue of AI safety. (Scott Weiner)
California lawmakers are still considering new rules against AI discrimination in hiring practices.
The governor had previously said he wanted to protect the state’s position as a global leader in AI, noting that it is home to 32 of the world’s top 50 AI companies. golden state,
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Newsom has said California is an early adopter of AI, as the state could deploy generic AI tools in the near future to tackle highway congestion, provide tax guidance and streamline homeless programs.
Earlier this month, Newsom signed some of the toughest laws in the country to fight against election deepfakes and adopt measures to protect Hollywood workers from unauthorized AI use.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
