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California Lawmaker Ready to Revive the Fight Over Regulating AI

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State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks at a press event on Oct. 21, 2024. On Wednesday, Sen. Wiener unveiled a new bill to create guardrails around AI, after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed his first effort. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) unveiled his plans on Wednesday for a bill that would create safety guardrails around the development of artificial intelligence.

“This bill would establish safeguards for the development of AI frontier models, and that would build state capacity for the use of AI,” the draft language now in place declares. Wiener plans to deliver a more detailed bill in about a month.

SB 53 is the latest salvo from the senate budget chair, whose first bill threatening to regulate large language model developers was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall.

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“We immediately got to work talking to both supporters and critics of that bill, trying to figure out if there’s a path forward, if we can build more support,” Wiener told KQED. “The goal here is to produce good policy.”

Wiener’s previous AI safety bill, SB-1947, drew international attention and controversy because it proposed establishing the toughest safety-testing standards in the United States for the largest generative AI models.

As part of Newsom’s veto message, his office announced the establishment of an AI working group, which includes experts at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Wiener said his legislation could incorporate the work of Newsom’s AI group, although its first policy recommendations are not expected until this summer.

“We can’t wait until the summer to introduce a bill,” Wiener said. “But once those recommendations come out, we’re going to be taking a close look at them, and we could potentially include some or all of those recommendations in our bill.”

Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Wiener said he still has the support of Amazon’s Anthropic, based in San Francisco, which helped to redraft SB 1047 to allay concerns from some in Silicon Valley that regulating AI could chill innovation in the still-nascent field.

Anthropic declined to comment for this story. Wiener said his office is talking to other tech companies as well but declined to name them.

“The Legislature is on record that it is able and willing to grapple with catastrophic AI risks,” said Wiener, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “The governor disagreed, and I respect his decision, even though I disagree with him. But the governor also made very clear in his detailed veto message that he recognizes this is an issue.”

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