This isn’t California state senator Scott Wiener’s first try at addressing the hazards of AI.
In 2024, Silicon Valley mounted a fierce marketing campaign towards his controversial AI security invoice, SB 1047, which might have made tech corporations responsible for the potential harms of their AI programs. Tech leaders warned that it could stifle America’s AI increase. Governor Gavin Newsom finally vetoed the invoice, echoing related issues, and a well-liked AI hacker home promptly threw an “SB 1047 Veto Social gathering.” One attendee instructed me, “Thank god, AI continues to be authorized.”
Now Wiener has returned with a brand new AI security invoice, SB 53, which sits on Governor Newsom’s desk awaiting his signature or veto someday within the subsequent few weeks. This time round, the invoice is way more well-liked or at the least, Silicon Valley doesn’t appear to be at battle with it.
Anthropic outright endorsed SB 53 earlier this month. Meta spokesperson Jim Cullinan tells iinfoai that the corporate helps AI regulation that balances guardrails with innovation and says, “SB 53 is a step in that path,” although there are areas for enchancment.
Former White Home AI coverage adviser Dean Ball tells iinfoai that SB 53 is a “victory for cheap voices,” and thinks there’s a robust probability Governor Newsom indicators it.
If signed, SB 53 would impose a number of the nation’s first security reporting necessities on AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Google — corporations that right this moment face no obligation to disclose how they take a look at their AI programs. Many AI labs voluntarily publish security studies explaining how their AI fashions might be used to create bioweapons and different risks, however they do that at will and so they’re not all the time constant.
The invoice requires main AI labs — particularly these making greater than $500 million in income — to publish security studies for his or her most succesful AI fashions. Very similar to SB 1047, the invoice particularly focuses on the worst sorts of AI dangers: their means to contribute to human deaths, cyberattacks, and chemical weapons. Governor Newsom is contemplating a number of different payments that handle different sorts of AI dangers, equivalent to engagement-optimization strategies in AI companions.
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SB 53 additionally creates protected channels for workers working at AI labs to report security issues to authorities officers, and establishes a state-operated cloud computing cluster, CalCompute, to supply AI analysis sources past the Large Tech corporations.
One purpose SB 53 could also be extra well-liked than SB 1047 is that it’s much less extreme. SB 1047 additionally would have made AI corporations responsible for any harms brought on by their AI fashions, whereas SB 53 focuses extra on requiring self-reporting and transparency. SB 53 additionally narrowly applies to the world’s largest tech corporations, moderately than startups.
However many within the tech business nonetheless imagine states ought to depart AI regulation as much as the federal authorities. In a latest letter to Governor Newsom, OpenAI argued that AI labs ought to solely need to adjust to federal requirements — which is a humorous factor to say to a state governor. Enterprise agency Andreessen Horowitz wrote a latest weblog put up vaguely suggesting that some payments in California may violate the Structure’s dormant Commerce Clause, which prohibits states from unfairly limiting interstate commerce.
Senator Wiener addresses these issues: He lacks religion within the federal authorities to go significant AI security regulation, so states must step up. Actually, Wiener thinks the Trump administration has been captured by the tech business and that latest federal efforts to dam all state AI legal guidelines are a type of Trump “rewarding his funders.”
The Trump administration has made a notable shift away from the Biden administration’s concentrate on AI security, changing it with an emphasis on development. Shortly after taking workplace, Vice President J.D. Vance appeared at an AI convention in Paris and stated: “I’m not right here this morning to speak about AI security, which was the title of the convention a few years in the past. I’m right here to speak about AI alternative.”
Silicon Valley has applauded this shift, exemplified by Trump’s AI Motion Plan, which eliminated boundaries to constructing out the infrastructure wanted to coach and serve AI fashions. As we speak, Large Tech CEOs are commonly seen eating on the White Home or asserting hundred-billion-dollar knowledge facilities alongside President Trump.
Senator Wiener thinks it’s vital for California to steer the nation on AI security, however with out choking off innovation.
I not too long ago interviewed Senator Wiener to debate his years on the negotiating desk with Silicon Valley and why he’s so centered on AI security payments. Our dialog has been edited calmly for readability and brevity.
Senator Wiener, I interviewed you when SB 1047 was sitting on Governor Newsom’s desk. Discuss to me concerning the journey you’ve been on to manage AI security in the previous few years.
It’s been a curler coaster, an unimaginable studying expertise, and simply actually rewarding. We’ve been in a position to assist elevate this concern [of AI safety], not simply in California, however within the nationwide and worldwide discourse.
We have now this extremely highly effective new know-how that’s altering the world. How will we make sure that it advantages humanity in a means the place we cut back the chance? How will we promote innovation, whereas additionally being very aware of public well being and public security. It’s an necessary — and in some methods, existential — dialog concerning the future. SB 1047, and now SB 53, have helped to foster that dialog about protected innovation.
Within the final 20 years of know-how, what have you ever discovered concerning the significance of legal guidelines that may maintain Silicon Valley to account?
I’m the man who represents San Francisco, the beating coronary heart of AI innovation. I’m instantly north of Silicon Valley itself, so we’re proper right here in the midst of all of it. However we’ve additionally seen how the big tech corporations — a number of the wealthiest corporations in world historical past — have been in a position to cease federal regulation.
Each time I see tech CEOs having dinner on the White Home with the aspiring fascist dictator, I’ve to take a deep breath. These are all actually sensible individuals who have generated huge wealth. Plenty of of us I symbolize work for them. It actually pains me after I see the offers which are being struck with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the way that cash will get funneled into Trump’s meme coin. It causes me deep concern.
I’m not somebody who’s anti-tech. I need tech innovation to occur. It’s extremely necessary. However that is an business that we should always not belief to manage itself or make voluntary commitments. And that’s not casting aspersions on anybody. That is capitalism, and it may well create huge prosperity but in addition trigger hurt if there are usually not wise rules to guard the general public curiosity. In the case of AI security, we’re making an attempt to string that needle.
SB 53 is concentrated on the worst harms that AI may imaginably trigger — demise, large cyberattacks, and the creation of bioweapons. Why focus there?
The dangers of AI are different. There may be algorithmic discrimination, job loss, deep fakes, and scams. There have been varied payments in California and elsewhere to handle these dangers. SB 53 was by no means meant to cowl the sphere and handle each threat created by AI. We’re centered on one particular class of threat, when it comes to catastrophic threat.
That concern got here to me organically from of us within the AI area in San Francisco — startup founders, frontline AI technologists, and people who find themselves constructing these fashions. They got here to me and stated, “This is a matter that must be addressed in a considerate means.”
Do you are feeling that AI programs are inherently unsafe, or have the potential to trigger demise and big cyberattacks?
I don’t suppose they’re inherently protected. I do know there are lots of people working in these labs who care very deeply about making an attempt to mitigate threat. And once more, it’s not about eliminating threat. Life is about threat, until you’re going to stay in your basement and by no means depart, you’re going to have threat in your life. Even in your basement, the ceiling would possibly fall down.
Is there a threat that some AI fashions might be used to do important hurt to society? Sure, and we all know there are individuals who would love to try this. We must always attempt to make it more durable for dangerous actors to trigger these extreme harms, and so ought to the folks creating these fashions.
Anthropic issued its help for SB 53. What are your conversations like with different business gamers?
We’ve talked to everybody: massive corporations, small startups, traders, and lecturers. Anthropic has been actually constructive. Final 12 months, they by no means formally supported [SB 1047] however that they had constructive issues to say about facets of the invoice. I don’t suppose [Anthropic] loves each facet of SB 53, however I feel they concluded that on stability the invoice was value supporting.
I’ve had conversations with massive AI labs who are usually not supporting the invoice, however are usually not at battle with it in the way in which they have been with SB 1047. It’s not shocking. SB 1047 was extra of a legal responsibility invoice, SB 53 is extra of a transparency invoice. Startups have been much less engaged this 12 months as a result of the invoice actually focuses on the biggest corporations.
Do you are feeling strain from the big AI PACs which have shaped in latest months?
That is one other symptom of Residents United. The wealthiest corporations on the planet can simply pour infinite sources into these PACs to attempt to intimidate elected officers. Underneath the principles we have now, they’ve each proper to try this. It’s by no means actually impacted how I method coverage. There have been teams making an attempt to destroy me for so long as I’ve been in elected workplace. Numerous teams have spent hundreds of thousands making an attempt to blow me up, and right here I’m. I’m on this to do proper by my constituents and attempt to make my group, San Francisco, and the world a greater place.
What’s your message to Governor Newsom as he’s debating whether or not to signal or veto this invoice?
My message is that we heard you. You vetoed SB 1047 and supplied a really complete and considerate veto message. You correctly convened a working group that produced a really robust report, and we actually regarded to that report in crafting this invoice. The governor laid out a path, and we adopted that path with a view to come to an settlement, and I hope we acquired there.
