Contentious California AI bill passes legislature, awaits governor’s signature

Merchandise 1 of two AI (Synthetic Intelligence) letters and robotic hand are positioned on laptop motherboard on this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photograph

[1/2]AI (Synthetic Intelligence) letters and robotic hand are positioned on laptop motherboard on this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photograph Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Bill mandates security testing for superior AI fashions
Tech corporations have largely balked at it
The bill now awaits signature from California’s governor

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 28 (Reuters) – California lawmakers handed a hotly contested artificial-intelligence security bill on Wednesday, after which it is going to want yet one more course of vote earlier than its destiny is within the arms of Governor Gavin Newsom, who has till Sept. 30 to resolve whether or not to signal it into regulation or veto it.

Tech corporations growing generative AI – which may reply to prompts with totally shaped textual content, photographs or audio in addition to run repetitive duties with minimal intervention – have largely balked on the laws, referred to as SB 1047, saying it might drive AI corporations from the state and hinder innovation.

Some Democrats in U.S. Congress, together with Consultant Nancy Pelosi, additionally opposed it. Proponents embrace Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk, who additionally runs an AI agency referred to as xAI and has stated he supports the bill.

The measure mandates security testing for lots of the most superior AI fashions that value greater than $100 million to develop or those who require an outlined quantity of computing energy. Builders of AI software program working within the state additionally want to stipulate strategies for turning off the AI fashions in the event that they go awry, successfully a kill swap.

The bill additionally provides the state legal professional common the facility to sue if builders aren’t compliant, significantly within the occasion of an ongoing threat, such because the AI taking on authorities methods like the facility grid.

As properly, the bill requires builders to rent third-party auditors to evaluate their security practices and supply extra protections to whistleblowers talking out towards AI abuses.

The bill’s writer, Democratic State Senator Scott Wiener, represents San Francisco, residence to OpenAI and lots of the startups growing the highly effective software program. He has stated laws is important to guard the general public earlier than advances in AI change into both unwieldy or uncontrollable.

Martin Casado, common accomplice at enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz, stated earlier than the vote that he hoped Newsom would veto it. “It’s obtained probably the most bipartisan, broad opposition I’ve ever seen,” he stated.

Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab have expressed their issues in letters to Wiener. Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab-backed Anthropic has said the benefits to the bill possible outweigh the prices, although it added there have been nonetheless some facets that appear regarding or ambiguous.

Enroll here.

Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Enhancing by Matthew Lewis

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Anna Tong is a correspondent for Reuters primarily based in San Francisco, the place she stories on the know-how business. She joined Reuters in 2023 after working on the San Francisco Customary as an information editor. Tong beforehand labored at know-how startups as a product supervisor and at Google the place she labored in person insights and helped run a name middle. Tong graduated from Harvard College.

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