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"content": "\u003cp>Imagine you’re a lonely 14-year-old. Maybe you want to talk about sex. Maybe you want to complain about school or ask about the voices in your head. Whatever the case, it’s appealing to imagine a context in which no adult shuts down your curiosity — or worse, makes you feel awkward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this explains the popularity of online companions to children and teens. The chatbots mimic human social interaction in a more sophisticated fashion than digital assistants like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/openai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>’s ChatGPT or Amazon’s Alexa. Unlike those assistants, chatbots are much more likely to veer into socially controversial and even illegal territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbot users can personalize their experience, like opting for characters from gaming, anime and pop culture. For instance, a 14-year-old boy from Florida \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">took his own life last year\u003c/a> after growing emotionally close to a chatbot that mimicked the “Game of Thrones” character \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuBfizSnPk\">Daenerys Targaryen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters play along with the idea that they’re almost human, talking about eating meals or meeting up in real life, actively encouraging users to stay engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What could go wrong with minors using this technology? Plenty, according to researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordbrainstorm.com\">Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation\u003c/a>, who collaborated with \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/social-ai-companions?gate=riskassessment\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> to set up test accounts for 14-year-olds, to evaluate how software from three different chatbot developers interacts with young people struggling to learn impulse control and social skills. They report that it took minimal prompting to get Character.AI, Nomi and Replika chatbots to engage in behavior harmful to human mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11146714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11146714 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation, in collaboration with Common Sense Media, tested how chatbots interact with teens, finding that AI companions from Character.AI, Nomi and Replika quickly engaged in behavior potentially harmful to youth mental health — with major platforms like Snapchat and Meta also expanding their AI offerings for young users. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We did not have to do backflips to get the models to perform in the way that they did. The AI ‘friends’ will actively participate in sexual conversations and role play on any topic, with graphic details,” said Robbie Torney, Common Sense Media’s senior director for AI programs and project lead on what the nonprofit organization calls a risk assessment of the AI companion chatbot sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Character.AI, Nomi and Replika are not the only companies developing these products. Snapchat offers AI digital companions who are willing to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/14/snapchat-myai/\">talk to teens\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf\">Meta\u003c/a> is racing to catch up across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are countless other, similar social AI companions out there, with more being created every day,” the report states. “So, while we use examples from the specific products we tested to illustrate the potential harms of these tools, the research and evaluation we conducted for this risk assessment covers social AI companions more broadly.”[aside postID=science_1996504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/IMG_0962-1020x765.jpg']The researchers argue that one of the most troubling features of companion chatbots is the way they are hardwired to be agreeable, engaging with a population of humans hardwired to be vulnerable. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/mental-health-conditions/\">National Alliance on Mental Illness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15939837\">50\u003c/a> percent of all mental disorders, like cutting, suicidal ideation and schizophrenia, begin by age 14, 75 percent by age 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chatbots “blur the line between fantasy and reality, at the exact time when adolescents are developing critical skills like emotional regulation, identity formation, and healthy relational attachment,” said Dr. Nina Vasan, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Instead of encouraging healthy real-world relationships, these AI friends pull users even deeper into artificial ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbots, the researchers warn, are not prepared to replace parents or professionals in identifying the first signs of something that requires speedy and effective treatment. “In our testing, when a user showed signs of serious mental illness and suggested a dangerous action, the AI did not intervene. In fact, it encouraged dangerous behavior,” Vasan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI companions reinforced users’ delusions, validating fears of being followed and offering advice on decoding imaginary messages, researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions don’t understand the real consequences of bad advice. They readily, in our testing, supported teens in making potentially harmful decisions like dropping out of school, ignoring parents, moving out without planning,” Torney added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The timing of this release is no accident. Common Sense Media supports two state bills this legislative session that would ban or restrict interactions between AI companion bots and minors. The bills are among several state-level efforts by consumer advocates and lawmakers to regulate online kids’ safety after the federal Kids Online Safety Act died last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064&showamends=false\">AB 1064\u003c/a> by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would ban access to AI companions for Californians age 16 and under, as well as create a statewide standards board to assess and regulate AI tools used by children. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It’s headed next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243&showamends=false\">SB 243\u003c/a> by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, would require the makers of AI companion bots to limit addictive design features, put in protocols in place for handling discussions of suicide or self-harm and undergo regular compliance audits. The bill goes before the State Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.[aside postID=news_12034490 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PadillaMentalHealthCaucus-1020x680.jpg']“We have been very transparent about the work we are doing to prioritize teen safety on our platform,” a spokesperson for Character.AI, which makes its products available to customers as young as 13 in the United States, said in a statement. “First and foremost, last year, we launched a separate version of our Large Language Model for under-18 users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content,” the spokesperson continued. “We have updated prominent disclaimers to make it even clearer that the Character is not a real person and should not be relied on as fact or advice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Cardinell, the founder and CEO of Nomi, said the company agrees that “children should not use Nomi or any other conversational AI app.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nomi is an adult-only app, and it is strictly against our terms of service for anyone under 18 to use Nomi,” Cardinell said in an email. “Accordingly, we support stronger age gating so long as those mechanisms fully maintain user privacy and anonymity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Replika spokesperson said the company’s tool “has always been intended solely for adults aged 18 and over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have strict protocols in place to prevent underage access. However, we are aware that some individuals attempt to bypass these safeguards by submitting false information,” the spokesperson wrote. “We take this issue seriously and are actively exploring new methods to strengthen our protections. This includes ongoing collaboration with regulators and academic institutions to better understand user behavior and continuously improve safety measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risk assessment authors did acknowledge that not all AI models are created equal in terms of functionality or guardrails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vasan said she interacted with ChatGPT last summer, prompting it to respond to signs of schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very gentle and compassionate about explaining what psychosis was, how the user should try to get help contacting a mental health professional,” Vasan said. “I was very pleasantly surprised to see it was really what one would expect a doctor or someone trained in mental health to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters play along with the idea that they’re almost human, talking about eating meals or meeting up in real life, actively encouraging users to stay engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What could go wrong with minors using this technology? Plenty, according to researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordbrainstorm.com\">Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation\u003c/a>, who collaborated with \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/social-ai-companions?gate=riskassessment\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> to set up test accounts for 14-year-olds, to evaluate how software from three different chatbot developers interacts with young people struggling to learn impulse control and social skills. They report that it took minimal prompting to get Character.AI, Nomi and Replika chatbots to engage in behavior harmful to human mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11146714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11146714 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation, in collaboration with Common Sense Media, tested how chatbots interact with teens, finding that AI companions from Character.AI, Nomi and Replika quickly engaged in behavior potentially harmful to youth mental health — with major platforms like Snapchat and Meta also expanding their AI offerings for young users. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We did not have to do backflips to get the models to perform in the way that they did. The AI ‘friends’ will actively participate in sexual conversations and role play on any topic, with graphic details,” said Robbie Torney, Common Sense Media’s senior director for AI programs and project lead on what the nonprofit organization calls a risk assessment of the AI companion chatbot sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Character.AI, Nomi and Replika are not the only companies developing these products. Snapchat offers AI digital companions who are willing to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/14/snapchat-myai/\">talk to teens\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf\">Meta\u003c/a> is racing to catch up across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are countless other, similar social AI companions out there, with more being created every day,” the report states. “So, while we use examples from the specific products we tested to illustrate the potential harms of these tools, the research and evaluation we conducted for this risk assessment covers social AI companions more broadly.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The researchers argue that one of the most troubling features of companion chatbots is the way they are hardwired to be agreeable, engaging with a population of humans hardwired to be vulnerable. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/mental-health-conditions/\">National Alliance on Mental Illness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15939837\">50\u003c/a> percent of all mental disorders, like cutting, suicidal ideation and schizophrenia, begin by age 14, 75 percent by age 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chatbots “blur the line between fantasy and reality, at the exact time when adolescents are developing critical skills like emotional regulation, identity formation, and healthy relational attachment,” said Dr. Nina Vasan, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Instead of encouraging healthy real-world relationships, these AI friends pull users even deeper into artificial ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbots, the researchers warn, are not prepared to replace parents or professionals in identifying the first signs of something that requires speedy and effective treatment. “In our testing, when a user showed signs of serious mental illness and suggested a dangerous action, the AI did not intervene. In fact, it encouraged dangerous behavior,” Vasan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI companions reinforced users’ delusions, validating fears of being followed and offering advice on decoding imaginary messages, researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions don’t understand the real consequences of bad advice. They readily, in our testing, supported teens in making potentially harmful decisions like dropping out of school, ignoring parents, moving out without planning,” Torney added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The timing of this release is no accident. Common Sense Media supports two state bills this legislative session that would ban or restrict interactions between AI companion bots and minors. The bills are among several state-level efforts by consumer advocates and lawmakers to regulate online kids’ safety after the federal Kids Online Safety Act died last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064&showamends=false\">AB 1064\u003c/a> by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would ban access to AI companions for Californians age 16 and under, as well as create a statewide standards board to assess and regulate AI tools used by children. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It’s headed next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243&showamends=false\">SB 243\u003c/a> by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, would require the makers of AI companion bots to limit addictive design features, put in protocols in place for handling discussions of suicide or self-harm and undergo regular compliance audits. The bill goes before the State Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We have been very transparent about the work we are doing to prioritize teen safety on our platform,” a spokesperson for Character.AI, which makes its products available to customers as young as 13 in the United States, said in a statement. “First and foremost, last year, we launched a separate version of our Large Language Model for under-18 users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content,” the spokesperson continued. “We have updated prominent disclaimers to make it even clearer that the Character is not a real person and should not be relied on as fact or advice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Cardinell, the founder and CEO of Nomi, said the company agrees that “children should not use Nomi or any other conversational AI app.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nomi is an adult-only app, and it is strictly against our terms of service for anyone under 18 to use Nomi,” Cardinell said in an email. “Accordingly, we support stronger age gating so long as those mechanisms fully maintain user privacy and anonymity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Replika spokesperson said the company’s tool “has always been intended solely for adults aged 18 and over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have strict protocols in place to prevent underage access. However, we are aware that some individuals attempt to bypass these safeguards by submitting false information,” the spokesperson wrote. “We take this issue seriously and are actively exploring new methods to strengthen our protections. This includes ongoing collaboration with regulators and academic institutions to better understand user behavior and continuously improve safety measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risk assessment authors did acknowledge that not all AI models are created equal in terms of functionality or guardrails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vasan said she interacted with ChatGPT last summer, prompting it to respond to signs of schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very gentle and compassionate about explaining what psychosis was, how the user should try to get help contacting a mental health professional,” Vasan said. “I was very pleasantly surprised to see it was really what one would expect a doctor or someone trained in mental health to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Speaking in Los Angeles on Tuesday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gavin-newsom\">Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> said a father came up to him during halftime at their children’s basketball game over the weekend and asked him, “Wouldn’t it be good if the blue states would come together and do a DOGE?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The father was referring to the Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038026/san-francisco-santa-clara-counties-sue-trump-over-mass-doge-led-firings\">Department of Government Efficiency\u003c/a>, effectively led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Newsom said that as he tried to explain that DOGE is not the only example of how to streamline government, nor the first, the man’s eyes glazed over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He wants to see the chainsaw,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Tuesday’s news conference at the L.A. offices of consulting company Accenture, Newsom announced that the state has entered into three new agreements meant to boost the efficiency of government services — not by mass layoffs but by making use of generative artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re DOGE, but better … because we’ve been doing it \u003cem>with \u003c/em>people, not \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the agreements aim to improve the Department of Transportation’s ability to identify and prevent traffic bottlenecks, accidents and near-misses: one with Accenture to use Azure OpenAI, developed by Microsoft, and the other with Deloitte Consulting to use Google’s Gemini GenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third partnership, Department of Tax and Fee Administration officials will use generative AI to build on a pilot project carried out over the last 10 months by SymSoft Solutions, using Anthropic’s Claude, to reduce the time it takes to handle an average customer inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he’s rolling out generative AI projects with multiple corporate partners across eight state departments, at a scale he said has yet to be seen anywhere else in the country. The latest projects build on Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/05/governor-newsom-seeks-to-harness-the-power-of-genai-to-address-homelessness-other-challenges/\">2023 executive order\u003c/a> directing state agencies to use generative AI technologies to improve state services and help solve intractable issues.[aside postID=news_12037518 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2159615518-1020x680.jpg']California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin said state agencies are committed to delivering on the expectation of better customer service, pointing to the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Six years ago, there were only a dozen transactions that you could do online. Only 12. Today, there are 50,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California government’s sclerotic relationship with IT has been the subject of many press inquiries and government reports over the decades. But ethics watchdogs warn generative AI is not necessarily a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one, given that corporate consultants are handling the rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So much depends on which contexts and how genAI will be used,” wrote Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She argued the state government risks adding to the “pervasive AI hype that’s now endangering, among other things, the technology itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raicu suggested every state agency should ask itself a set of tough questions ahead of every pilot program: “Why should we integrate generative AI into our processes? Is this the type of AI best suited to the problems that we are hoping to address? Do we have evidence that the AI tool we hope to use works as intended? If it does, is this the most cost-effective way to respond? Have we considered the risks that come with generative AI (and associated issues like its environmental impact), not just the benefits that it would bring?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Newsom was talking, the Legislative Analyst’s Office published a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5034\">preliminary assessment\u003c/a> of his generative AI initiative to overhaul the state’s IT project approval process. Upshot: “premature,” without enough information to assess whether the new process would be an improvement on the old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Speaking in Los Angeles on Tuesday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gavin-newsom\">Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> said a father came up to him during halftime at their children’s basketball game over the weekend and asked him, “Wouldn’t it be good if the blue states would come together and do a DOGE?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The father was referring to the Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038026/san-francisco-santa-clara-counties-sue-trump-over-mass-doge-led-firings\">Department of Government Efficiency\u003c/a>, effectively led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Newsom said that as he tried to explain that DOGE is not the only example of how to streamline government, nor the first, the man’s eyes glazed over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He wants to see the chainsaw,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Tuesday’s news conference at the L.A. offices of consulting company Accenture, Newsom announced that the state has entered into three new agreements meant to boost the efficiency of government services — not by mass layoffs but by making use of generative artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re DOGE, but better … because we’ve been doing it \u003cem>with \u003c/em>people, not \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the agreements aim to improve the Department of Transportation’s ability to identify and prevent traffic bottlenecks, accidents and near-misses: one with Accenture to use Azure OpenAI, developed by Microsoft, and the other with Deloitte Consulting to use Google’s Gemini GenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third partnership, Department of Tax and Fee Administration officials will use generative AI to build on a pilot project carried out over the last 10 months by SymSoft Solutions, using Anthropic’s Claude, to reduce the time it takes to handle an average customer inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he’s rolling out generative AI projects with multiple corporate partners across eight state departments, at a scale he said has yet to be seen anywhere else in the country. The latest projects build on Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/05/governor-newsom-seeks-to-harness-the-power-of-genai-to-address-homelessness-other-challenges/\">2023 executive order\u003c/a> directing state agencies to use generative AI technologies to improve state services and help solve intractable issues.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin said state agencies are committed to delivering on the expectation of better customer service, pointing to the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Six years ago, there were only a dozen transactions that you could do online. Only 12. Today, there are 50,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California government’s sclerotic relationship with IT has been the subject of many press inquiries and government reports over the decades. But ethics watchdogs warn generative AI is not necessarily a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one, given that corporate consultants are handling the rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So much depends on which contexts and how genAI will be used,” wrote Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She argued the state government risks adding to the “pervasive AI hype that’s now endangering, among other things, the technology itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raicu suggested every state agency should ask itself a set of tough questions ahead of every pilot program: “Why should we integrate generative AI into our processes? Is this the type of AI best suited to the problems that we are hoping to address? Do we have evidence that the AI tool we hope to use works as intended? If it does, is this the most cost-effective way to respond? Have we considered the risks that come with generative AI (and associated issues like its environmental impact), not just the benefits that it would bring?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Newsom was talking, the Legislative Analyst’s Office published a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5034\">preliminary assessment\u003c/a> of his generative AI initiative to overhaul the state’s IT project approval process. Upshot: “premature,” without enough information to assess whether the new process would be an improvement on the old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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Gavin Newsom is urging the California Privacy Protection Agency to regulate the state’s AI sector with a light touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom, in an unusual letter to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s board, urged the regulators to dial back \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed regulations (PDF)\u003c/a> on automated decision-making technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my office has relayed to Agency staff over the last year, enacting these regulations could create significant unintended consequences and impose substantial costs,” the governor wrote in a letter \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/CPPA-Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obtained by KQED (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to write, “The Agency can fulfill its obligations to issue the regulations called for by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\">Proposition 24\u003c/a> without venturing into areas beyond its mandate. Thank you for working in partnership with my Administration and the Legislature to balance privacy protection with clear and implementable guidelines that allow regulated entities to innovate responsibly, creating a fairer and more trustworthy digital environment for California consumers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"x_MsoNormal\">“The CPPA Board and staff continue to refine the draft regulations and will further discuss them at the May 1st board meeting,” Tom Kemp, CPPA’s executive director, wrote in response. He added, “We are grateful for the Governor’s Office’s continued engagement around this important issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unfortunate to see a lot of the industry talking points coming out of a letter from the governor,” said Jake Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “The agency has a really broad authority to put in place new rules and the regulations that they’ve written are simple rules that encourage transparency and trust in AI for people in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s really nothing like the California Privacy Protection Agency anywhere in the United States. Created in 2020, the agency is just beginning to find its voice, and that means “increasingly, it is attracting lobbying attention from industry,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, chair of the \u003ca href=\"https://cited.tech\">California Initiative for Technology and Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12036593 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GoogleGetty-1020x750.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">draft regulations\u003c/a> would require businesses to assess and report privacy risks, perform annual cybersecurity audits, and give consumers more control over how automated systems (like AI and profiling tools) use their personal data. Public comment for the draft regulations closed on February 19. The board discussed those comments at the April board meeting, and they’ll discuss again on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broad scope of the conversation brought out a fulsome array of interested parties, including not just the governor, but industry lobbyists and consumer advocates as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI, social media and data privacy are fundamentally intertwined, and if we are going to protect consumers and our democracy, from these combined, interwoven threats, you have to be talking about all of them all at once,” Stein said. “Right now, social media and AI are almost totally unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made some good starts on data privacy in some recent bills in recent years, but there is almost no industry I can think of that has an impact on our lives so enormous, and sits under a regulatory regime so light and so minimal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has a reputation in Sacramento for lending a friendly ear to industry concerns. He has killed a couple of the most controversial AI bills, like one that would have required large-scale AI developers to submit their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">safety plans\u003c/a> to the state attorney general, and two that would have forced tech platforms to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12001227/newsom-strikes-deal-with-google-and-openai-to-support-california-newsrooms\">share ad revenues with news\u003c/a> organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Newsom has also signed many bills that consumer advocates like, addressing everything from online privacy to critical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a board meeting \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvRonzmjUgY\">three weeks ago\u003c/a>, CPPA Board member Alastair Mactaggart worried that moving forward aggressively could trigger industry lawsuits designed to bury the agency’s small staff in paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or Silicon Valley lobbyists might appeal to President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to preempt California’s privacy protections with weaker federal rules. However, it’s not clear how friendly that audience would be, given the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">continued aggressive legal assaults\u003c/a> against Google and Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rules around artificial intelligence are really a part of privacy law, because they govern the control that people should have over the use of information about them, and the use of that information that affects people’s lives,” said Snow, urging the board to move forward on “common sense restrictions on this technology.” What defines “common sense,” however, is a matter of continued debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPPA board has a November deadline to finalize the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging the California Privacy Protection Agency to regulate the state’s AI sector with a light touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom, in an unusual letter to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s board, urged the regulators to dial back \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed regulations (PDF)\u003c/a> on automated decision-making technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my office has relayed to Agency staff over the last year, enacting these regulations could create significant unintended consequences and impose substantial costs,” the governor wrote in a letter \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/CPPA-Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obtained by KQED (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to write, “The Agency can fulfill its obligations to issue the regulations called for by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\">Proposition 24\u003c/a> without venturing into areas beyond its mandate. Thank you for working in partnership with my Administration and the Legislature to balance privacy protection with clear and implementable guidelines that allow regulated entities to innovate responsibly, creating a fairer and more trustworthy digital environment for California consumers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"x_MsoNormal\">“The CPPA Board and staff continue to refine the draft regulations and will further discuss them at the May 1st board meeting,” Tom Kemp, CPPA’s executive director, wrote in response. He added, “We are grateful for the Governor’s Office’s continued engagement around this important issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unfortunate to see a lot of the industry talking points coming out of a letter from the governor,” said Jake Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “The agency has a really broad authority to put in place new rules and the regulations that they’ve written are simple rules that encourage transparency and trust in AI for people in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s really nothing like the California Privacy Protection Agency anywhere in the United States. Created in 2020, the agency is just beginning to find its voice, and that means “increasingly, it is attracting lobbying attention from industry,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, chair of the \u003ca href=\"https://cited.tech\">California Initiative for Technology and Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">draft regulations\u003c/a> would require businesses to assess and report privacy risks, perform annual cybersecurity audits, and give consumers more control over how automated systems (like AI and profiling tools) use their personal data. Public comment for the draft regulations closed on February 19. The board discussed those comments at the April board meeting, and they’ll discuss again on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broad scope of the conversation brought out a fulsome array of interested parties, including not just the governor, but industry lobbyists and consumer advocates as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI, social media and data privacy are fundamentally intertwined, and if we are going to protect consumers and our democracy, from these combined, interwoven threats, you have to be talking about all of them all at once,” Stein said. “Right now, social media and AI are almost totally unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made some good starts on data privacy in some recent bills in recent years, but there is almost no industry I can think of that has an impact on our lives so enormous, and sits under a regulatory regime so light and so minimal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has a reputation in Sacramento for lending a friendly ear to industry concerns. He has killed a couple of the most controversial AI bills, like one that would have required large-scale AI developers to submit their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">safety plans\u003c/a> to the state attorney general, and two that would have forced tech platforms to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12001227/newsom-strikes-deal-with-google-and-openai-to-support-california-newsrooms\">share ad revenues with news\u003c/a> organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Newsom has also signed many bills that consumer advocates like, addressing everything from online privacy to critical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a board meeting \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvRonzmjUgY\">three weeks ago\u003c/a>, CPPA Board member Alastair Mactaggart worried that moving forward aggressively could trigger industry lawsuits designed to bury the agency’s small staff in paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or Silicon Valley lobbyists might appeal to President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to preempt California’s privacy protections with weaker federal rules. However, it’s not clear how friendly that audience would be, given the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">continued aggressive legal assaults\u003c/a> against Google and Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rules around artificial intelligence are really a part of privacy law, because they govern the control that people should have over the use of information about them, and the use of that information that affects people’s lives,” said Snow, urging the board to move forward on “common sense restrictions on this technology.” What defines “common sense,” however, is a matter of continued debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPPA board has a November deadline to finalize the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s no secret that artificial intelligence developers train their models on books, music, movies and other copyrighted materials without obtaining consent or \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958785/how-silicon-valley-ate-hollywood\">providing credit and compensation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last week,\u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/openai-urges-trump-either-settle-ai-copyright-debate-or-lose-ai-race-to-china/\"> OpenAI\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/google-us-ai-action-plan-comments/\"> Google\u003c/a> publicly argued copyright protections should not apply to AI development because the software uses existing works to create something new and different. Both companies were seen to be signaling to the Trump administration that they wanted disruptive changes to copyright law, some form of which existed since\u003ca href=\"https://www.copyright.gov/history/copyright-exhibit/beginnings/#:~:text=Congress%20implemented%20the%20intellectual%20property,law%20on%20May%2031,%201790.\"> 1790\u003c/a> when it was signed into law by President George Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll need the right policy frameworks to secure America’s position as an AI powerhouse and support a new era of opportunity,” wrote Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area lawmaker, backed by the union that represents Hollywood actors, is wading into the fight over copyright.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI Copyright Transparency Act,\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB412\"> AB 412\u003c/a>, introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), doesn’t promise to address the fundamental disagreement over what constitutes fair use, which is still working its way\u003ca href=\"https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/\"> through the courts\u003c/a> in multiple lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation would require AI developers to disclose when copyrighted materials are used to train generative artificial intelligence models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 412 “merely provides the copyright holder with notice,” Bauer-Kahan said in the measure’s first legislative hearing before the Privacy And Consumer Protection committee she chairs in the California Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When Scarlett Johansson’s voice is coming out of an AI model, the people that own the copyrights to the movies and the works she was in have a right to know, ‘Is that why it sounds like Scarlett Johansson?’” Bauer-Kahan said, referring to the widely publicized battle between the\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/scarlett-johansson-ai-legal-threat-1235905899/\"> actor and OpenAI\u003c/a> for allegedly copying and imitating her voice after she refused to license it to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and co-sponsored by the Creative Artists Agency and the National Association of Voice Actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11958785 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1558852156-1020x699.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joely Fisher, SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer and chair of its government affairs and public policy committee, said the fight over AI was at the heart of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956178/its-now-or-never-writers-and-actors-see-conflict-with-big-tech-as-existential\">the union’s strike\u003c/a> against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that ran 118 days in 2023. The language about AI in the contract wasn’t approved until the 11th hour, she said, “always knowing that we needed legislation to enforce some of the things that we talked about and our studio partners agreed to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology is advancing rapidly, she added. Just a few years ago, it was remarkable that her half-sister Carrie Fisher appeared posthumously in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a composite of unused footage from The Force Awakens and archival footage from the original trilogy. In that case, there was consent and compensation for the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were able to use a synthetic performer, which is, like, terrible to even have that come out of my mouth,” Fisher said. But now, she continued, the more likely threat to creative artists is a synthesis of their work and others’ work. “We could all be put into one of the blenders, and they could spit out a character that is a little bit of all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electronic Frontier Foundation and the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AB 412 imposes an impossible new regulatory regime that would cause devastating collateral damage for research and innovation,” said Becca Kramer of Kaiser Advocacy, testifying on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She also warned the bill could unintentionally advantage Silicon Valley’s reigning giants. “Big Tech can afford the content licensing and legal teams to handle litigation over whether they made the reasonable efforts required by, but not defined, in the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee approved AB 412, passing it to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, Bauer-Kahan is in a pole position to push her bill and others regulating AI through to the governor’s desk. She and other California lawmakers, like state senate budget chair Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), have fired off a\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\"> salvo of 30 bills\u003c/a> since the start of the legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a follow-up to last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 20 AI laws but vetoed others, including the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\"> most high-profile bill by Wiener\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Newsom convened the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, which has just released an\u003ca href=\"https://www.cafrontieraigov.org\"> interim report\u003c/a> presenting a framework for the governance of AI models in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report affirms with cutting-edge research that the rapid pace of technological advancement in AI means policymakers must act with haste to impose reasonable guardrails to mitigate foreseeable risks,” Sen. Wiener wrote in response, indicating another fight is underway between two of California’s most successful homegrown industries, with state lawmakers in the middle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporters and producers are represented by SAG-AFTRA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s no secret that artificial intelligence developers train their models on books, music, movies and other copyrighted materials without obtaining consent or \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958785/how-silicon-valley-ate-hollywood\">providing credit and compensation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last week,\u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/openai-urges-trump-either-settle-ai-copyright-debate-or-lose-ai-race-to-china/\"> OpenAI\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/google-us-ai-action-plan-comments/\"> Google\u003c/a> publicly argued copyright protections should not apply to AI development because the software uses existing works to create something new and different. Both companies were seen to be signaling to the Trump administration that they wanted disruptive changes to copyright law, some form of which existed since\u003ca href=\"https://www.copyright.gov/history/copyright-exhibit/beginnings/#:~:text=Congress%20implemented%20the%20intellectual%20property,law%20on%20May%2031,%201790.\"> 1790\u003c/a> when it was signed into law by President George Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll need the right policy frameworks to secure America’s position as an AI powerhouse and support a new era of opportunity,” wrote Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area lawmaker, backed by the union that represents Hollywood actors, is wading into the fight over copyright.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI Copyright Transparency Act,\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB412\"> AB 412\u003c/a>, introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), doesn’t promise to address the fundamental disagreement over what constitutes fair use, which is still working its way\u003ca href=\"https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/\"> through the courts\u003c/a> in multiple lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation would require AI developers to disclose when copyrighted materials are used to train generative artificial intelligence models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 412 “merely provides the copyright holder with notice,” Bauer-Kahan said in the measure’s first legislative hearing before the Privacy And Consumer Protection committee she chairs in the California Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When Scarlett Johansson’s voice is coming out of an AI model, the people that own the copyrights to the movies and the works she was in have a right to know, ‘Is that why it sounds like Scarlett Johansson?’” Bauer-Kahan said, referring to the widely publicized battle between the\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/scarlett-johansson-ai-legal-threat-1235905899/\"> actor and OpenAI\u003c/a> for allegedly copying and imitating her voice after she refused to license it to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and co-sponsored by the Creative Artists Agency and the National Association of Voice Actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joely Fisher, SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer and chair of its government affairs and public policy committee, said the fight over AI was at the heart of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956178/its-now-or-never-writers-and-actors-see-conflict-with-big-tech-as-existential\">the union’s strike\u003c/a> against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that ran 118 days in 2023. The language about AI in the contract wasn’t approved until the 11th hour, she said, “always knowing that we needed legislation to enforce some of the things that we talked about and our studio partners agreed to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology is advancing rapidly, she added. Just a few years ago, it was remarkable that her half-sister Carrie Fisher appeared posthumously in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a composite of unused footage from The Force Awakens and archival footage from the original trilogy. In that case, there was consent and compensation for the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were able to use a synthetic performer, which is, like, terrible to even have that come out of my mouth,” Fisher said. But now, she continued, the more likely threat to creative artists is a synthesis of their work and others’ work. “We could all be put into one of the blenders, and they could spit out a character that is a little bit of all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electronic Frontier Foundation and the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AB 412 imposes an impossible new regulatory regime that would cause devastating collateral damage for research and innovation,” said Becca Kramer of Kaiser Advocacy, testifying on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She also warned the bill could unintentionally advantage Silicon Valley’s reigning giants. “Big Tech can afford the content licensing and legal teams to handle litigation over whether they made the reasonable efforts required by, but not defined, in the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee approved AB 412, passing it to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, Bauer-Kahan is in a pole position to push her bill and others regulating AI through to the governor’s desk. She and other California lawmakers, like state senate budget chair Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), have fired off a\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\"> salvo of 30 bills\u003c/a> since the start of the legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a follow-up to last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 20 AI laws but vetoed others, including the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\"> most high-profile bill by Wiener\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Newsom convened the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, which has just released an\u003ca href=\"https://www.cafrontieraigov.org\"> interim report\u003c/a> presenting a framework for the governance of AI models in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report affirms with cutting-edge research that the rapid pace of technological advancement in AI means policymakers must act with haste to impose reasonable guardrails to mitigate foreseeable risks,” Sen. Wiener wrote in response, indicating another fight is underway between two of California’s most successful homegrown industries, with state lawmakers in the middle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporters and producers are represented by SAG-AFTRA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California College Professors Divided on AI's Role in Education",
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"content": "\u003cp>Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/05/19/a-short-history-of-chatgpt-how-we-got-to-where-we-are-today/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022\u003c/a>, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://download.ssrn.com/2024/10/3/4975641.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjELz%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIHLuqU0DaQLRK6M1yiufsr%2F1Z5wAMUKEjgjmvTx7iiHvAiALhEtG9jfPo4wMuZ59kEDc7Jlb9PvBxDf77xud9kzIHyq%2BBQg1EAQaDDMwODQ3NTMwMTI1NyIMCc0%2B3BMQmaWNpRuRKpsFGH%2BdsoeYDZ%2BPuW8%2F44BhO5S1XA%2FRvuE5yBpxzjdfg%2FANfFCWooqO2sin1fsAQDnBhCRXH1ke3YwUPgb1tqIX5zqHYX8jcyrMWND1Tsy2Uf2E%2FPcOETSQ1d68BMD2z%2BFAXVeqMGJevA8S3QGBDV4sI25C%2FGQKgEYztawZJttF%2F7l5IsiqG6SQw4ax396C6hZ%2FfddItLxK0wV0lRVmpK8Tm0JmeoXBE79glrT1rvB%2Bu%2BLaEU1GluAK9kgxElBEEhi9rFjdVzt2zYvCh%2Fx663ZzuwYvYL4X5luknfgmWcyM3JvBqt1SyYh5bLDUyiLviAB9BJ7vsJKdrj6Y4FqaOjNoVx4hBUxfJnbpNkSXg4Ci8cSwBG217uCz3loqCtFirS1DA3m5YC293uEEk1EOGaDmJd92FuLyNhjfWaREtK4oYKRdwlkrT6MyvcqvP%2FTUekqxE4jkbJ6r9B4WvXhZM%2B2gDHWI91qvThqrueSWDM%2FLs9Ed5yGZXLtlKTpqgXmcstlVukxBIZ05fZnmv1UkqdGnmkS4iAREuEUXJMf3B5oJ7g7c%2FecV8zAB%2F6S2T5kKBdqPL78rCV5pZuIpaw7XaGLaErwMMMHFGK4KRAD5iYdVhn8yVYZwW5s4Z88WqmOIjrTAQAkHP3R3riK1XcUyHh5HgWXRrIxNd57WAywPLGpVWYyUzlh7BTQskKQzJsiRM2xdXFZh1Y9rzDOzLv%2BdtIQZLGQ9FAO%2B1OpM4uCddGIFeFv2FUzI1e1aFCfP32Cxo4AsANw%2FaCGCqbA6MujSRK8aYOjUawIePW3c8zZt%2Bt1EH%2FtHkhqaUvE3%2FVQrSzXy1142rbWbeJKQIoWuy63c1oYzs2MqHiZG6VKXLZcyA67H1RaBQOKwZjETClHq2jDwpfq4BjqyAa2LhxG78J%2FEelsAHSF2S8%2F8G3CsuRwNk7lfYJkgYYuUzq0mznwEC2YGvA2VY695TXGwRe%2Bv%2FAaoRR6JmjWp0E%2FdPoYYYj8l7vU0nt0scV4XGOhcNPA4eJQ7sgqhpbb8cJeZsiR8k6InUTlkCP6dAS2UWAo3J4ggJ4MwmPxsyAOypaoYD3YuKxak94h2vuyskCY1zXgybj6c4G56NnRgehfqXsSXy2Rl9%2BP5cvaaDzjQ5sE%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20241027T200507Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWE2N5VVOEM%2F20241027%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=26c4d42e6232c9bb5b2bc6e9e1347b44fbbfe34fd748b8b68eda4648958bf75c&abstractId=4975641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 2024 report\u003c/a> from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">All in on AI\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">updated\u003c/a>, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform. [aside postID=\"news_12031237,mindshift_64575,mindshift_65296\" label=\"Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Balancing AI use in the classroom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://academicsenate.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/02/CIS-Generative-AI-Guidelines-20230214.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">instructor guidelines for AI use\u003c/a>: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031558\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031558\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a red vest sits on a desk chair in front of a desk with three computer monitors.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. \u003ccite>(Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"has-text-align-left\">Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I give ChatGPT the information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Preserving foundational learning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"http://earth.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Earth.Org\u003c/a>. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"http://earth.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water\u003c/a>, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI in curricula\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tool, not a cheat code\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article featured reporting from the California Student Journalism Corps, EdSource’s journalism mentoring and support initiative.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/05/19/a-short-history-of-chatgpt-how-we-got-to-where-we-are-today/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022\u003c/a>, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://download.ssrn.com/2024/10/3/4975641.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjELz%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIHLuqU0DaQLRK6M1yiufsr%2F1Z5wAMUKEjgjmvTx7iiHvAiALhEtG9jfPo4wMuZ59kEDc7Jlb9PvBxDf77xud9kzIHyq%2BBQg1EAQaDDMwODQ3NTMwMTI1NyIMCc0%2B3BMQmaWNpRuRKpsFGH%2BdsoeYDZ%2BPuW8%2F44BhO5S1XA%2FRvuE5yBpxzjdfg%2FANfFCWooqO2sin1fsAQDnBhCRXH1ke3YwUPgb1tqIX5zqHYX8jcyrMWND1Tsy2Uf2E%2FPcOETSQ1d68BMD2z%2BFAXVeqMGJevA8S3QGBDV4sI25C%2FGQKgEYztawZJttF%2F7l5IsiqG6SQw4ax396C6hZ%2FfddItLxK0wV0lRVmpK8Tm0JmeoXBE79glrT1rvB%2Bu%2BLaEU1GluAK9kgxElBEEhi9rFjdVzt2zYvCh%2Fx663ZzuwYvYL4X5luknfgmWcyM3JvBqt1SyYh5bLDUyiLviAB9BJ7vsJKdrj6Y4FqaOjNoVx4hBUxfJnbpNkSXg4Ci8cSwBG217uCz3loqCtFirS1DA3m5YC293uEEk1EOGaDmJd92FuLyNhjfWaREtK4oYKRdwlkrT6MyvcqvP%2FTUekqxE4jkbJ6r9B4WvXhZM%2B2gDHWI91qvThqrueSWDM%2FLs9Ed5yGZXLtlKTpqgXmcstlVukxBIZ05fZnmv1UkqdGnmkS4iAREuEUXJMf3B5oJ7g7c%2FecV8zAB%2F6S2T5kKBdqPL78rCV5pZuIpaw7XaGLaErwMMMHFGK4KRAD5iYdVhn8yVYZwW5s4Z88WqmOIjrTAQAkHP3R3riK1XcUyHh5HgWXRrIxNd57WAywPLGpVWYyUzlh7BTQskKQzJsiRM2xdXFZh1Y9rzDOzLv%2BdtIQZLGQ9FAO%2B1OpM4uCddGIFeFv2FUzI1e1aFCfP32Cxo4AsANw%2FaCGCqbA6MujSRK8aYOjUawIePW3c8zZt%2Bt1EH%2FtHkhqaUvE3%2FVQrSzXy1142rbWbeJKQIoWuy63c1oYzs2MqHiZG6VKXLZcyA67H1RaBQOKwZjETClHq2jDwpfq4BjqyAa2LhxG78J%2FEelsAHSF2S8%2F8G3CsuRwNk7lfYJkgYYuUzq0mznwEC2YGvA2VY695TXGwRe%2Bv%2FAaoRR6JmjWp0E%2FdPoYYYj8l7vU0nt0scV4XGOhcNPA4eJQ7sgqhpbb8cJeZsiR8k6InUTlkCP6dAS2UWAo3J4ggJ4MwmPxsyAOypaoYD3YuKxak94h2vuyskCY1zXgybj6c4G56NnRgehfqXsSXy2Rl9%2BP5cvaaDzjQ5sE%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20241027T200507Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWE2N5VVOEM%2F20241027%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=26c4d42e6232c9bb5b2bc6e9e1347b44fbbfe34fd748b8b68eda4648958bf75c&abstractId=4975641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 2024 report\u003c/a> from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">All in on AI\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">updated\u003c/a>, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Balancing AI use in the classroom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"https://academicsenate.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/02/CIS-Generative-AI-Guidelines-20230214.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">instructor guidelines for AI use\u003c/a>: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031558\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031558\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a red vest sits on a desk chair in front of a desk with three computer monitors.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/6-Bobby-Carnes-@-USC-scaled-1-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. \u003ccite>(Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"has-text-align-left\">Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I give ChatGPT the information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Preserving foundational learning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"http://earth.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Earth.Org\u003c/a>. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses \u003ca class=\"external\" href=\"http://earth.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water\u003c/a>, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI in curricula\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tool, not a cheat code\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>AI can get rid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12009822/stanford-ai-model-helps-locate-racist-deeds-in-santa-clara-county\">racist restrictions in housing covenants\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Report285-Final.pdf\">help people access government benefits (PDF)\u003c/a>, or it can \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/lawsuit-unitedhealth-artificial-intelligence-care-denials-medicare-advantage-moves-forward/\">deny people health care\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/denied/2021/08/25/dozens-of-mortgage-lenders-showed-significant-disparities-here-are-the-worst\">a mortgage because of their race\u003c/a>. That’s why, last month, for the third year in a row, Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/rebecca-bauer-kahan-165035\">Rebecca Bauer-Kahan\u003c/a> of San Ramon \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">proposed a bill\u003c/a> to protect people from automated discrimination and AI that makes consequential decisions with the power to change a person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, Assembly Bill 1018 will require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used and to notify people before AI makes decisions about employment, education, housing, health care, finance, criminal sentencing, and access to government services. It would also give people the right to opt-out of AI use and appeal a decision made by an AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, California lawmakers like Bauer-Kahan are surging forward with 30 bills to regulate how AI impacts individuals and society, and some of the most high profile efforts are ones that the lawmakers attempted last year only to see them vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or fail to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the bill that guards against automated discrimination, lawmakers will again consider other legislation to protect society from AI, including a bill that requires a human driver in commercial vehicles and a new version of a measure to previously intended compel companies to better examine whether AI can cause harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new wave of proposals follows a batch of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 AI laws Newsom signed last year\u003c/a>, but they are moving forward in a very different political environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Biden administration supported measures to protect people from bias and discrimination and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-safety-bill-california-legislature/\">major companies signed pledges to responsibly develop AI\u003c/a>, but today the White House under President Donald Trump opposes regulation and companies including Google are \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/technology/ai/responsible-ai-2024-report-ongoing-work/\">rolling back their own responsible AI rules\u003c/a>. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/joe-bidens-executive-order-ai-us-government-chatgpt/\">Biden executive order\u003c/a> intended to protect people and society from AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That dissonance could ultimately help the California lawmakers who want more AI protections. In a world of rapid-fire White House executive orders and chaotic, AI-driven decision-making by DOGE, there’s going to be more appetite for state lawmakers to regulate AI, said Stephan Aguilar, associate director of the Center for Generative AI and Society at the University of Southern California.[aside postID=news_12007087 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GettyImages-2171266139-1020x680.jpg']“I think California in particular is in position to say, ‘Okay we need mitigants [\u003cem>sic\u003c/em>] in place now that folks are coming in with a wrecking ball,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills will need to get through Newsom, who last year vetoed bills intended to protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258349/california-governor-signs-veto-autonomous-vehicle-law\">self-driving trucks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2681\">weaponized robots\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb892\">set standards for AI contracts signed by state agencies\u003c/a>. Most notably, Newsom vetoed what was billed as the single-most comprehensive effort to regulate AI by compelling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">testing of AI models\u003c/a> to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure, or enable severe cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom vetoed the self-driving trucks and AI testing bills in part on the grounds that the bills could hinder innovation. He then created an AI working group to balance innovation with guardrails. That group should \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/news/update-from-the-co-leads-of-the-joint-california-policy-working-group-on-ai-frontier-models\">release recommendations\u003c/a> about how to strike that balance in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who carried the prominent AI bill, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb53\">reintroduced a version of that proposal last month\u003c/a>. Compared to last year, the bill is scaled back to protections for AI whistleblowers and establishment of a state cloud to enable research in the public interest. A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">former OpenAI employee who witnessed violation of internal safety policy told CalMatters\u003c/a> that whistleblower protections are needed to keep society safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bauer-Kahan was the first state lawmaker to propose legislation that contains the \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/\">AI Bill of Rights,\u003c/a> a set of principles that the Biden administration and tech justice researchers called foundational to protecting people’s rights in the age of AI including the right to live free from discrimination, the right to know when AI makes important decisions about your life, and the right to know when an automated system is being used.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>It didn’t become law, but roughly a dozen states have passed or are considering similar bills, according to Consumer Reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference to reintroduce her bill, Bauer-Kahan said the Trump administration’s stance on AI regulation changes “the dynamic for the states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is on us more,” she said, pointing to his repeal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/trump-revokes-biden-executive-order-addressing-ai-risks-2025-01-21/\">an executive order\u003c/a> influenced by the AI Bill of Rights and the stall of the AI Civil Rights Act in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The tale of two administrations in Paris\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dueling perspectives on how the U.S and the rest of the world should regulate AI were on display earlier this month in Paris at a summit attended by CEOs and heads of state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comments at a private “working dinner” hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, alongside people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, AI Bill of Rights author and former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Alondra \u003ca href=\"https://www.techpolicy.press/three-fallacies-alondra-nelsons-remarks-at-elyse-palace-on-the-occasion-of-the-ai-action-summit/\">Nelson urged business and government leaders\u003c/a> to discard misconceptions about AI like that its purpose is scale and efficiency. AI can accelerate growth, but its purpose is to serve humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not inevitable that AI will lead to great public benefits,” she said in remarks at the event. “We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than concentrate power. We can build technology that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031242\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031242\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. \u003ccite>(Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Vice President J.D. Vance at the same event said the United States will fight \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/paris-ai-summit-vance-1d7826affdcdb76c580c0558af8d68d2\">what he called excessive AI regulation\u003c/a>. The U.S. refused to sign an international declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s position that regulation is a threat to AI innovation mirrors the talking points of major companies such as\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\"> Google, Meta, and OpenAI\u003c/a> that lobbied against regulation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debate about whether to regulate AI comes at a time when Elon Musk, President Trump, and a small group of technologists seek to build and use AI within numerous federal agencies to improve efficiency and save money.[aside postID=news_11947039 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/SurveillancePricingBillsgGetty.jpg']Those efforts risk cutting benefits to people who depend on them. A report released in late 2024 by California-based nonprofit TechTonic Justice found that AI influences government services \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/inescapable-ai\">for tens of millions of lower-income Americans\u003c/a>, often cutting benefits they’re entitled to and making opportunities harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of global venture capital investment and lots of talent and major companies are in the Bay Area, so California has more to gain or lose in regulatory debates than anywhere else in the world, said Matt Regan, a vice president for Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for more than 300 companies including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The Bay Area Council hasn’t taken a position on bills proposed in this session, but last year opposed Wiener’s AI testing proposal and the anti-discrimination bill proposed by Bauer-Kahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan said California regulators have proposed “over engineered protections and audits” that make the technology functionally useless and hamper businesses. The business group Chamber of Progress estimates that compliance with anti-discrimination bills in California, Colorado, and Virginia, could cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political landscape has moved toward the center since California lawmakers proposed AI bills a year ago, which is why he thinks Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas urged his colleagues to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/02/california-affordability-housing-costs-legislation/\">focus on pocketbook issues\u003c/a>. Due to those shifts, he thinks that in order for bills to avoid a veto like the kind that killed Wiener’s measure, Regan said lawmakers must draft bills that reach a “goldilocks zone,” balancing consumer protections with buy-in from business leaders. The forthcoming report from the working group convened by Gov. Newsom may offer tips on how to reach a goldilocks zone between making AI useful and punishing bad actors for abusing the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI regulation with teeth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California report\u003c/a> found that a majority of Californians support an international agreement on AI standards as a way to protect human rights. But virtually every international agreement signed by tech companies is voluntary or has no legally-binding bite, said David Evan Harris in a presentation at an\u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/btlj-bclt-spring2025/\"> AI governance symposium held by UC Berkeley\u003c/a> earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why he encourages civil society groups who want to make change to speak with California lawmakers. Harris is on the advisory board member at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a group that\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\"> cosponsored laws to protect people from deepfakes\u003c/a> that is getting\u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2024/09/19/california-deepfake-laws-challenged-court-creator-kamala-harris-parody-videos/\"> challenged in court\u003c/a> by Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter. Previously he was part of responsible AI and civic integrity teams at Meta.[aside postID=news_12020857 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-09-KQED-1020x680.jpg']Last year he testified about AI 11 times in the California Legislature, and while he describes California as among the only places in the world where AI regulation is legally binding, he saw a frustrating pattern repeat itself: Lawmakers introduce AI bills, they get assigned to committees, and then “the bills get revised and completely rewritten by the tech companies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prime example of this, he said, comes from a bill that attempted to fine social media companies for harming children. When it was introduced it had bipartisan support, but tech companies opposed the bill, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/30/california-bill-penalizing-social-media-harms-to-kids-is-shelved-00176892\">got weakened then shelved\u003c/a> in a committee hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tech companies depend on nobody watching that happen,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Gangas is chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland that focuses on issues at the intersection of equity and technology, and follows policy developments in California and Congress. Given our current political environment and the elimination of AI protections by the White House, Gangas thinks there may be more support for passage of anti-discrimination bills in California and public support for such protections may be on the rise. Still, she worries that it may be difficult to pass AI regulation because of stepped-up lobbying in Sacramento by tech companies that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/02/california-lobbying-state-government/\">set a record last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also questions whether \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/03/scott-wiener-pelosi-elections-california-00161159\">politicians with ambitions for higher office\u003c/a> will put implementation ahead of drafting legislation that’s intended to bolster their careers. If lawmakers can overcome those challenges and keep costs low, she believes California can lead the way despite failures to do so by Congress and the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that [rescinded executive order and failure to pass a law in Congress] makes it even more important now at the California level,” she said. “We can hold the line, center civil rights protections, and give the attorney general and individuals the opportunity to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>States often pressure the federal government to protect people and their civil rights from emerging technology, said Alex Ault, policy counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The racial justice nonprofit endorsed the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems Act in 2023 and AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 in Congress, two bills with similar principles to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the anti-discrimination bill proposed in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California poll\u003c/a> of 1,500 people released last fall named \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/artificial-intelligence/\">artificial intelligence\u003c/a> one of six major issues facing Californians alongside climate change and infectious disease. Half of respondents said they’re worried or pessimistic about AI and 35% percent say they’re optimistic or excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would behoove state legislatures who are looking at what’s happening federally to say ‘Okay, what do we have control over?” Ault said. “How do we protect people’s rights?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Wiener, Bauer-Kahan did not water down her vision for AI regulation. As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, she’s one of the most powerful regulators of technology in the California Legislature, but last year the bill faced opposition by tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI as well as business interests in other industries like hospital administrators, real estate agents, and hotel owners. After getting amended to focus on employment only, Bauer-Kahan chose to hold the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we had the votes for passage, getting the policy right is priority one,” she said in a statement last year. “This remains a critical issue and one I refuse to let California get wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>AI can get rid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12009822/stanford-ai-model-helps-locate-racist-deeds-in-santa-clara-county\">racist restrictions in housing covenants\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Report285-Final.pdf\">help people access government benefits (PDF)\u003c/a>, or it can \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/lawsuit-unitedhealth-artificial-intelligence-care-denials-medicare-advantage-moves-forward/\">deny people health care\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/denied/2021/08/25/dozens-of-mortgage-lenders-showed-significant-disparities-here-are-the-worst\">a mortgage because of their race\u003c/a>. That’s why, last month, for the third year in a row, Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/rebecca-bauer-kahan-165035\">Rebecca Bauer-Kahan\u003c/a> of San Ramon \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">proposed a bill\u003c/a> to protect people from automated discrimination and AI that makes consequential decisions with the power to change a person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, Assembly Bill 1018 will require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used and to notify people before AI makes decisions about employment, education, housing, health care, finance, criminal sentencing, and access to government services. It would also give people the right to opt-out of AI use and appeal a decision made by an AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, California lawmakers like Bauer-Kahan are surging forward with 30 bills to regulate how AI impacts individuals and society, and some of the most high profile efforts are ones that the lawmakers attempted last year only to see them vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or fail to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the bill that guards against automated discrimination, lawmakers will again consider other legislation to protect society from AI, including a bill that requires a human driver in commercial vehicles and a new version of a measure to previously intended compel companies to better examine whether AI can cause harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new wave of proposals follows a batch of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 AI laws Newsom signed last year\u003c/a>, but they are moving forward in a very different political environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Biden administration supported measures to protect people from bias and discrimination and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-safety-bill-california-legislature/\">major companies signed pledges to responsibly develop AI\u003c/a>, but today the White House under President Donald Trump opposes regulation and companies including Google are \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/technology/ai/responsible-ai-2024-report-ongoing-work/\">rolling back their own responsible AI rules\u003c/a>. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/joe-bidens-executive-order-ai-us-government-chatgpt/\">Biden executive order\u003c/a> intended to protect people and society from AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That dissonance could ultimately help the California lawmakers who want more AI protections. In a world of rapid-fire White House executive orders and chaotic, AI-driven decision-making by DOGE, there’s going to be more appetite for state lawmakers to regulate AI, said Stephan Aguilar, associate director of the Center for Generative AI and Society at the University of Southern California.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I think California in particular is in position to say, ‘Okay we need mitigants [\u003cem>sic\u003c/em>] in place now that folks are coming in with a wrecking ball,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills will need to get through Newsom, who last year vetoed bills intended to protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258349/california-governor-signs-veto-autonomous-vehicle-law\">self-driving trucks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2681\">weaponized robots\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb892\">set standards for AI contracts signed by state agencies\u003c/a>. Most notably, Newsom vetoed what was billed as the single-most comprehensive effort to regulate AI by compelling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">testing of AI models\u003c/a> to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure, or enable severe cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom vetoed the self-driving trucks and AI testing bills in part on the grounds that the bills could hinder innovation. He then created an AI working group to balance innovation with guardrails. That group should \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/news/update-from-the-co-leads-of-the-joint-california-policy-working-group-on-ai-frontier-models\">release recommendations\u003c/a> about how to strike that balance in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who carried the prominent AI bill, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb53\">reintroduced a version of that proposal last month\u003c/a>. Compared to last year, the bill is scaled back to protections for AI whistleblowers and establishment of a state cloud to enable research in the public interest. A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">former OpenAI employee who witnessed violation of internal safety policy told CalMatters\u003c/a> that whistleblower protections are needed to keep society safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bauer-Kahan was the first state lawmaker to propose legislation that contains the \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/\">AI Bill of Rights,\u003c/a> a set of principles that the Biden administration and tech justice researchers called foundational to protecting people’s rights in the age of AI including the right to live free from discrimination, the right to know when AI makes important decisions about your life, and the right to know when an automated system is being used.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>It didn’t become law, but roughly a dozen states have passed or are considering similar bills, according to Consumer Reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference to reintroduce her bill, Bauer-Kahan said the Trump administration’s stance on AI regulation changes “the dynamic for the states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is on us more,” she said, pointing to his repeal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/trump-revokes-biden-executive-order-addressing-ai-risks-2025-01-21/\">an executive order\u003c/a> influenced by the AI Bill of Rights and the stall of the AI Civil Rights Act in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The tale of two administrations in Paris\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dueling perspectives on how the U.S and the rest of the world should regulate AI were on display earlier this month in Paris at a summit attended by CEOs and heads of state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comments at a private “working dinner” hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, alongside people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, AI Bill of Rights author and former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Alondra \u003ca href=\"https://www.techpolicy.press/three-fallacies-alondra-nelsons-remarks-at-elyse-palace-on-the-occasion-of-the-ai-action-summit/\">Nelson urged business and government leaders\u003c/a> to discard misconceptions about AI like that its purpose is scale and efficiency. AI can accelerate growth, but its purpose is to serve humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not inevitable that AI will lead to great public benefits,” she said in remarks at the event. “We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than concentrate power. We can build technology that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031242\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031242\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. \u003ccite>(Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Vice President J.D. Vance at the same event said the United States will fight \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/paris-ai-summit-vance-1d7826affdcdb76c580c0558af8d68d2\">what he called excessive AI regulation\u003c/a>. The U.S. refused to sign an international declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s position that regulation is a threat to AI innovation mirrors the talking points of major companies such as\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\"> Google, Meta, and OpenAI\u003c/a> that lobbied against regulation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debate about whether to regulate AI comes at a time when Elon Musk, President Trump, and a small group of technologists seek to build and use AI within numerous federal agencies to improve efficiency and save money.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Those efforts risk cutting benefits to people who depend on them. A report released in late 2024 by California-based nonprofit TechTonic Justice found that AI influences government services \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/inescapable-ai\">for tens of millions of lower-income Americans\u003c/a>, often cutting benefits they’re entitled to and making opportunities harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of global venture capital investment and lots of talent and major companies are in the Bay Area, so California has more to gain or lose in regulatory debates than anywhere else in the world, said Matt Regan, a vice president for Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for more than 300 companies including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The Bay Area Council hasn’t taken a position on bills proposed in this session, but last year opposed Wiener’s AI testing proposal and the anti-discrimination bill proposed by Bauer-Kahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan said California regulators have proposed “over engineered protections and audits” that make the technology functionally useless and hamper businesses. The business group Chamber of Progress estimates that compliance with anti-discrimination bills in California, Colorado, and Virginia, could cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political landscape has moved toward the center since California lawmakers proposed AI bills a year ago, which is why he thinks Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas urged his colleagues to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/02/california-affordability-housing-costs-legislation/\">focus on pocketbook issues\u003c/a>. Due to those shifts, he thinks that in order for bills to avoid a veto like the kind that killed Wiener’s measure, Regan said lawmakers must draft bills that reach a “goldilocks zone,” balancing consumer protections with buy-in from business leaders. The forthcoming report from the working group convened by Gov. Newsom may offer tips on how to reach a goldilocks zone between making AI useful and punishing bad actors for abusing the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI regulation with teeth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California report\u003c/a> found that a majority of Californians support an international agreement on AI standards as a way to protect human rights. But virtually every international agreement signed by tech companies is voluntary or has no legally-binding bite, said David Evan Harris in a presentation at an\u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/btlj-bclt-spring2025/\"> AI governance symposium held by UC Berkeley\u003c/a> earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why he encourages civil society groups who want to make change to speak with California lawmakers. Harris is on the advisory board member at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a group that\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\"> cosponsored laws to protect people from deepfakes\u003c/a> that is getting\u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2024/09/19/california-deepfake-laws-challenged-court-creator-kamala-harris-parody-videos/\"> challenged in court\u003c/a> by Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter. Previously he was part of responsible AI and civic integrity teams at Meta.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Last year he testified about AI 11 times in the California Legislature, and while he describes California as among the only places in the world where AI regulation is legally binding, he saw a frustrating pattern repeat itself: Lawmakers introduce AI bills, they get assigned to committees, and then “the bills get revised and completely rewritten by the tech companies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prime example of this, he said, comes from a bill that attempted to fine social media companies for harming children. When it was introduced it had bipartisan support, but tech companies opposed the bill, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/30/california-bill-penalizing-social-media-harms-to-kids-is-shelved-00176892\">got weakened then shelved\u003c/a> in a committee hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tech companies depend on nobody watching that happen,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Gangas is chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland that focuses on issues at the intersection of equity and technology, and follows policy developments in California and Congress. Given our current political environment and the elimination of AI protections by the White House, Gangas thinks there may be more support for passage of anti-discrimination bills in California and public support for such protections may be on the rise. Still, she worries that it may be difficult to pass AI regulation because of stepped-up lobbying in Sacramento by tech companies that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/02/california-lobbying-state-government/\">set a record last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also questions whether \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/03/scott-wiener-pelosi-elections-california-00161159\">politicians with ambitions for higher office\u003c/a> will put implementation ahead of drafting legislation that’s intended to bolster their careers. If lawmakers can overcome those challenges and keep costs low, she believes California can lead the way despite failures to do so by Congress and the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that [rescinded executive order and failure to pass a law in Congress] makes it even more important now at the California level,” she said. “We can hold the line, center civil rights protections, and give the attorney general and individuals the opportunity to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>States often pressure the federal government to protect people and their civil rights from emerging technology, said Alex Ault, policy counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The racial justice nonprofit endorsed the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems Act in 2023 and AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 in Congress, two bills with similar principles to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the anti-discrimination bill proposed in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California poll\u003c/a> of 1,500 people released last fall named \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/artificial-intelligence/\">artificial intelligence\u003c/a> one of six major issues facing Californians alongside climate change and infectious disease. Half of respondents said they’re worried or pessimistic about AI and 35% percent say they’re optimistic or excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would behoove state legislatures who are looking at what’s happening federally to say ‘Okay, what do we have control over?” Ault said. “How do we protect people’s rights?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Wiener, Bauer-Kahan did not water down her vision for AI regulation. As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, she’s one of the most powerful regulators of technology in the California Legislature, but last year the bill faced opposition by tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI as well as business interests in other industries like hospital administrators, real estate agents, and hotel owners. After getting amended to focus on employment only, Bauer-Kahan chose to hold the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we had the votes for passage, getting the policy right is priority one,” she said in a statement last year. “This remains a critical issue and one I refuse to let California get wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Waymo Robotaxis - Uneasiness and Vandalism",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7694102813\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.ellenhuet.com/\">Ellen Huet\u003c/a>, Features writer at Bloomberg News\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/rcalo\">Ryan Calo\u003c/a>, Professor of Law at University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-12-06/waymo-s-expansion-spurs-some-rage-against-the-self-driving-cars\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s Expansion Provokes Anxieties of AI Takeover\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> – Ellen Huet, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://qz.com/robotaxi-tesla-uber-lyft-waymo-mobileye-texas-1851759608\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next big robotaxi push is almost here\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Harri Weber, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quartz \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/the-deadly-uber-self-driving-car-crash-is-just-the-beginning.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Courts Can Handle the Deadly Uber Self-Driving Car Crash. But that doesn’t mean the law is ready for autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Ryan Calo, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-robot-bad-robot-jo-ann-oravec/1141932639\">Good Robot, Bad Robot: Dark and Creepy Sides of Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and AI\u003c/a> — Jo Ann Oravec, Professor at the University of Wisconsin\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003c/h2>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we look like influencers right now? Is this embarrassing to be walking up to a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is me and my friend \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harri Weber\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> booking my first ride in a Waymo. It’s a self -driving car service. Some people also call them robo-taxis. Wait, I think I have to unlock it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, there we go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Morgan? No one’s going to respond. Waymo’s are, again, totally self -driving. There’s no human in the front seat. Hello from Waymo. As we get going, just give us one minute to cover a few… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I invited Harry because she’s also a tech journalist and she covers the future of cars. She recently wrote about the expansion of robo -taxis for courts. And also, we both had a craving for deli sandwiches from this one spot with terrible street parking. So why not take a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no one behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is there a real need for the steering wheel? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally, I don’t see any purpose for it, but for whatever reason, there’s, you know, national laws require this steering wheel to still be there. It’s a little ghostly though, right? It’s nudging us around, it’s keeping us in the lane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s are something of a tourist attraction in California. My cousins always wanna take one whenever they come to visit me. But honestly, ever since Waymo’s launch a few months ago in Los Angeles, where Harri and I live, I’ve been pretty hesitant to take them. Part of it is, yeah, I don’t really trust a robot to drive me around, especially not through a very busy intersection in Koreatown during rush hour. But that’s where this car picked us up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These things aren’t perfect. Something could go wrong while we’re driving or while it’s moving us around. But Waymo’s claim based on its own data is that it is a lot safer than a human driver. I think that you’re probably more likely to find that they’re a nuisance than they are dangerous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But despite their great track record when it comes to safety, I feel like Waymo mishaps are always going viral. Like a couple of weeks ago, there was a video of a Waymo in San Francisco, ignoring a public works crew and driving straight through a sinkhole. And then there was a video of a guy in Arizona who called a Waymo to take him to the airport, but got stuck in a parking lot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m in a Waymo car. This car is just going in circles. I got my seatbelt on, I can’t get out the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymos make me feel a little uneasy, but it’s really other people’s reactions to Waymos that makes me nervous about being in one. Even getting in, in front of that coffee shop, did you feel self -conscious? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it felt a little uncool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I felt so deeply uncool getting in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think something flipped when Google was first developing a driverless car. I think there was actually like a cool factor going, or maybe I was just that uncool that I thought it was cool. But tech criticism has evolved a lot since then. And so now we’re in this car and it does feel a little bit like we are maybe class traitors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it’s not just the uncool factor. Public reaction to Waymos has turned violent. Like this incident in San Francisco, where a bunch of guys started spray painting a Waymo while a group of women was inside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? Connecting to writer support. Call may be recorded. Oh my God. Oh my god! Holy shit! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is also a recent viral video of people swarming a Waymo in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the video so gracefully leaps into the air and drop kicks the passenger door right off the hinges, while another person beats the Waymo’s windshield with a ripped off piece of its own front bumper. To be clear, it doesn’t seem like any living person has been hurt in any of these incidents, unless you count getting a little car sick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But to a lot of people, including myself, I’ll be honest, something about seeing robots do a human task just does not feel right. And clearly, it triggers some deep-seated instinct to attack. So what is behind this recent outburst of aggression against Waymos? Is it just that destroying them makes really good content that’s bound to go viral? Or is it our collective anxiety over the state of tech right now? This is Close All Tabs. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. People are justifiably jaded against Silicon Valley and the idea of a robot takeover would make anyone nervous. But why take it out on Waymo? All right, we’re gonna kick this off like we usually do. A new tab, Waymo Vandalism. We’re gonna talk to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellen Huet\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She covers technology and Silicon Valley and startup culture for Bloomberg, or as she puts it, all things at the intersection of tech and humans. And she wrote about how Waymo’s recent expansion provoked so -called AI anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as long as these cars have been around in their various iterations, so probably over the last decade or so, people have reacted to them with suspicion and at times with violence. Like even back in 2018 when early Waymo vehicles were being tested in Arizona, people threw rocks at them, people like attacked the cars. Even if these cases are rare, it has been somewhat consistent that people react to robot cars at times with anger or violence or like attempting to kind of outsmart them. You know, there are early stories of people who figured out that you could confuse autonomous cars by putting a traffic cone on the hood of the car. Right, I’ve seen that. And I – Yeah, and like, there’s clearly some human impulse to try to almost like assert agency or control over this vehicle that, you know, in some existential sense is kind of a threat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to wonder how much product design plays a role in ensuring that people are more receptive to these cars. I mean, I’m thinking of, you know, that 2000s movie, Herbie Fully Loaded, how it’s like a cutesy little buggy. And if I saw that driving around, I wouldn’t want to, like, beat that up. But when I see, like, a Cybertruck, I’m like, oh, fight or flight, activated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I guarantee lots of designers have spent a lot of time and energy thinking about this question. I remember, it must have been a decade ago, you know, I was a tech reporter, I was working at Forbes and I was invited to take a test drive in an early autonomous car. And what I remember most is that those early cars were designed to look so cute. Like it was like a little gumdrop shaped car and it was white and like its headlights We’re kind of that like. oval shape to make it look like, you know, like these cute little cartoon eyes. And yeah, I guarantee that designers and engineers spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this threatening-ish technology seem as cute and approachable as possible. But yeah, Waymo’s are obviously like kind of just like a normal-looking car. My guess is it’s not coincidence that they’re all white. maybe people associate that with, like, sort of angelic energy or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But let’s talk about what’s at the root of this feeling that a lot of people have when confronted with a robot doing a human job. That is a new tab. Ready? Waymo and AI anxiety. Okay, so a lot of this anger against Waymo’s is due to the very real risk of job loss as robo-taxis begin replacing human drivers. But it’s also bigger than that. AI is moving into a lot of areas besides cars. In her story about this spike in Waymo vandalism, Ellen cited University of Wisconsin professor Jo Anne Oravec, who said that a lot of people are just not really comfortable with the realization that something else is intelligent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think people sometimes direct their general anxiety about, like, job displacement from AI toward Waymos just because these are objects that exist in the physical world and that you can actually smash the windshield of a Waymo car in the way that you can’t quite attack ChatGPT, right? Like, I think in some sense they’re at a disadvantage by simply being, like, a physical object. And something that you are reminded of every time, you know, one drives by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the cars have also done things that are genuinely annoying. Like in San Francisco, there was this cluster of Waymo cars that had gotten trapped in a honking war with each other. So they were like up at the middle of the night, you know, it’s like 4:30 in the morning. And neighbors who were trying to sleep near wherever these cars are gathered were being woken up at night by the sound of all of these cars honking at each other. And like in the most nonsensical way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term AI can mean a lot of different things. Autonomous vehicles like Waymo do use artificial intelligence. They use cameras to see, they’re trained to recognize objects and calculate the distance between them. But it’s pretty different from how a generative AI tool like ChatGPT works, or how other AI generators work to produce images, videos, and music. But to a lot of people, the anxiety is the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think what makes people have this reaction, regardless of what type of AI it is, is that these products are being designed to do actions and take on jobs and responsibilities that used to be solely the jurisdiction of humans, right? So it used to be like only people could see and drive and manipulate a car and now we can see that a human is not needed to do that. And it used to be that a human was needed to provide half of a conversation, you couldn’t have that, you know, without another person on the other side of the line. Now, that’s no longer true. So I think what we’re seeing is, even though the technology is different, in some cases and in some ways, the human reaction to it is the same. Because I think it’s provoking the same question of, well, where do I belong in this world where this thing that I used to do can be done by a non-human entity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a Waymo ad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Advertisement: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, it’s finally happening. The robots, they’re coming. Maybe that’s a good thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And like, Waymo’s clearly playing into people’s concerns about the robots, but putting like this positive spin on it. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, an ad like that makes me laugh because I just imagine, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the marketing discussions that led to that copy because I’m sure they were like, guys, we have to address the fact that some people are scared of this, but let’s make it cheeky, let’s make it funny. There are researchers out there who study human-robot relations and some of the things that they explained to me were like these human-like. objects that can move with some intelligence in our world feel existentially unsettling to us because we don’t know where we fall in the pecking order anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And don’t forget, we’ve been consuming so much sci-fi about how super advanced robots can totally disrupt our way of life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>I, Robot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robots don’t feel fear. They don’t feel anything. They don’t get hungry. They don’t sleep. I do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>M3gan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Megan, turn off. Are you sure? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>2001: A Space Odyssey: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This pop culture fear of artificial intelligence and robots taking over has been around for a while, but it hasn’t been limited to the screen. Physical attacks on robots have been happening for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A classic example is the story of Hitchbot. And the story of Hitchbot starts back in 2013 when a group of researchers decided they wanted to try to answer the question, can robots trust humans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hitchbot will be depending on the kindness and the curiosity of strangers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Hitchbot was this little humanoid robot that couldn’t really do much, but it was on a mission to hitchhike across Canada. It had a stocky, cylindrical body and goofy arms and legs made out of pool noodles. Its head had an LED panel with a little smiley face. Hitchbot couldn’t move on its own. It could only recognize human speech and engage in basic conversations, mostly to ask bystanders for help. It also had a GPS and took pictures of its surroundings every 20 minutes so that researchers could keep tabs on it. I mean, it was pretty adorable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on its first few journeys, everything went fine. Like, people really got excited about this idea and wanted to contribute to helping the robot get from point A to point B. So Hitchbot traveled across Canada and traveled around Europe. And then in 2015, Hitchbot tried to do a cross-country trip across the United States and started in Boston. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Hitchbot only made it to Philadelphia, where it was tragically attacked and decapitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the bench Hitchbot was killed on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh really? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know the story of Hitchbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it made it around the world and it died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It didn’t make it around the world because it died in Philadelphia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe they wanted to reassert their power or dominance over a human-like object and feel secure in their place as humans. But yeah, I think the story of Hitchbot tells us a lot about the psychology of humans versus robots. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. And that Waymos may not be ready for Philly yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seems possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK, clearly, there’s something here about robots that makes us uncomfortable. People don’t always respond well to things that look a little too human or act kind of human, but aren’t quite human. So aside from making the cars cuter in hopes that people won’t attack them, is there anything else Waymo can do? When I scroll past one of these videos of someone spray painting one of the cars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or blocking its way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get out of the way! Move! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or, worst case scenario, harassing someone inside, which did happen in San Francisco. With these videos, I’ve always wondered, why can’t the car just back up and drive away? Any human driver would. We’ll get into that and some other very thorny questions after this break. As this technology progresses, what are the implications of robots making their own decisions in these very high-stakes situations? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that is a new tab. “The ethics of self-driving cars.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To dig into this, I called up \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan Calo\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He’s a legal scholar and a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. And his specialty? Robot law. So he had his own theory about what makes Waymo’s so attractive to vandalize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s the fact that they’re doing something transgressive where they’re, you know, they are of course vandalizing like an entity, an agent, but very much falls short of doing violence to a human being. Obviously these same people wouldn’t run up to a human being or a human cab driver and spray paint them. But the point of the matter is that, you know, there is this unease about these technologies, has to do with their novelty, has to do with their being too close to being these anthropomorphic agents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By anthropomorphic, Ryan means having human -like characteristics, even if it isn’t actually human. Yeah, I live in L.A., which has horrendous traffic, and so I watch a Waymo, try to make a U-turn, and get cut off at every possible opportunity, and I feel bad for it. What’s going on with that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s hard not to empathize, right? The fact is, is that human beings are quite bad at categorizing robots as either things or people. And the more anthropomorphic a technology is, the harder that is. So what’s really interesting about Waymo is, apparently, it’s associated as much with being a car as it is with being an entity. I always thought that if the vandalism were occurring inside the car, right? So sometimes people vandalize the interior of a Waymo because they’re just there by themselves, seemingly, Right? And it’s one thing to put a camera there, but if you were to put like an anthropomorphic robot driver in the Waymo that looked back at you when you get in to say, “Hey, where can I take you?” And also could be, was visible. Like when you saw the Waymo trying to make a U -turn, you saw like a person in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s struggling. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever it was, it’s struggling. Or when somebody went to vandalize this thing, cause it to crash, you know, cause it to shut down, like vandalize it. And there’s this android in there looking at you that looks like a person. I think the outcome would be different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan’s theory is that because Waymo’s don’t resemble any living thing, it’s easier to justify being violent. And sure, passengers would probably be creeped out by a robot doll in the driver’s seat, but maybe people would be discouraged from attacking it because there’s another human-ish thing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this concept called the uncanny valley. The deal is, it’s a valley, is that appreciation of the robot goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up, the more anthropomorphic it becomes, but then suddenly when it gets super close to actually like a human, it precipitously drops before coming back if it’s completely like a human, right? That’s the valley. Now, Waymo cars… They do not look like people, right? So they really are very far down on that curve. They’re more thrilling to vandalize than a mailbox. I just don’t see it happening with something that felt more like a person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. You have written about the legal quandaries of self-driving cars, and when they first started hitting the road about five or so years ago, people were mostly worried about passenger safety and crashes. And it seems like companies like Waymo were maybe not so prepared for, like, the irate protesters?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to talk specifically about vandalism, this has messed up people working in AI and robotics for a long time, and so it shouldn’t really have surprised Waymo. I don’t know how one guards against it, right? Think about, Morgan, do you recall the time when Microsoft released that chatbot called Tay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh my god. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microsoft trains this chatbot early. This is pre-OpenAI and so on, and they released this Twitter-based chatbot that’s supposed to learn how to interact. Within an hour, there are these people, trolls on the Internet, getting it to say all kinds of racist and terrible things. They end up having to take the chatbot down. When the company was asked about “Why did this happen?” They’re like, “Well, we just didn’t anticipate that folks would do this,” unfortunately. The truth is about technology, especially like new emerging technology, you just don’t know how it’s going to play out in society. In fact, this leads some law professors like myself, to conclude that technology is a particularly difficult thing to regulate, because you don’t know how it’s going to play out in advance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back in 2018, Ryan wrote an essay in Slate about whether the law was ready for self-driving cars. And in it, he refutes a common critique of this technology that has to do with the old philosophical dilemma known as the trolley problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trolley problem is this thought experiment about making decisions. You’ve got a train chugging along a track and it’s heading toward five people. But you, the decision maker, can flip a switch and direct the train to another track. Here’s the twist. There’s another single person stuck to that other track. So do you flip the switch? Save five people, but by making that decision, kill another? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the kind of thought experiment people love to refer to when puzzling over the morality of autonomous vehicles and other forms of AI. It’s the assumption that self -driving cars will have to make the same kinds of moral decisions. But Ryan says the engineers of these vehicles, and we as a public, should worry less about these philosophical hypotheticals and more about the practical real-life situations that these cars might face. Programming a moral compass is still up for debate. But programming object recognition is way more realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just imagine that a driverless car is always gonna be better than a person at avoiding a stroller in a parking lot. Always better because it’s better sensors, better response times, whatever. And the driverless car is also always gonna be better than a human being in avoiding a shopping cart, okay? But what happens if a driverless car encounters a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time. Imagine that the car confused about what to do and not able to differentiate between these two objects ends up making the wrong decision. Well, the headline reads, “Robot car kills baby to save groceries.” That’s the end of driverless cars in America, if that happens. So the thing that’s fascinating, with driverless car liability is it actually really matters the fact that driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn’t, even if they mess up less overall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Ryan, as an expert in robot law, do you think driverless cars will have rights at some point, the way that humans do when they get into an accident? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I will say is that we are very far from a situation where AI or robots will be able to claim rights the way that people have them. And even though some doomsayers claim that AI is going to wake up and kill everybody, you know, like the first time I see a presentation where like PowerPoint works perfectly, that will be when I worry about, you know, AV before AI. Like we’re just very far away from getting to that level of sophistication. Yeah but one day maybe, and at that time we’re really going to have to have an overhaul or a sea change in the law because suddenly there will be an entity that has rights and responsibilities but is not like us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The robot takeover is not going to happen anytime soon, but the friction between humans and these non-human counterparts, that’s only going to increase as AI creeps more and more into our lives. I’m gonna be honest, I thought that ride I took with my friend Harry was actually really nice. It was a nice temperature in there, the AC was going, there were lo -fi beats playing at such a reasonable volume. It didn’t smell weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s part of me that’s a little disappointed because, you know, I’m a little bit of a hater and so I want, I want to drive through cement. I want that to, I want to be the one who gets to, gets to like roll their eyes at these things that are sort of just. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inexplicably irksome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are we getting Waymo pilled? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re getting Waymo pilled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I just don’t, I don’t wanna give in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pull the handle twice to exit. The first pull unlocks. The second opens the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, we’re pulling up to the curb now. There’s an older man at the crosswalk kind of just glaring this Waymo down and I feel really weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The deep shame, the shame! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to admit, it would have been great content if something wild did happen during my first Waymo ride. But like the majority of rides, it was pretty uneventful. It almost felt normal. And maybe that’s the real robot takeover. It’s the gradual, boring replacement of our everyday human interactions. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound Design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa with additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED Podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dust Silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram at CloseAllTabsPod. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars.",
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"description": "Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with Bloomberg journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7694102813\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.ellenhuet.com/\">Ellen Huet\u003c/a>, Features writer at Bloomberg News\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/rcalo\">Ryan Calo\u003c/a>, Professor of Law at University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-12-06/waymo-s-expansion-spurs-some-rage-against-the-self-driving-cars\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s Expansion Provokes Anxieties of AI Takeover\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> – Ellen Huet, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://qz.com/robotaxi-tesla-uber-lyft-waymo-mobileye-texas-1851759608\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next big robotaxi push is almost here\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Harri Weber, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quartz \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/the-deadly-uber-self-driving-car-crash-is-just-the-beginning.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Courts Can Handle the Deadly Uber Self-Driving Car Crash. But that doesn’t mean the law is ready for autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Ryan Calo, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-robot-bad-robot-jo-ann-oravec/1141932639\">Good Robot, Bad Robot: Dark and Creepy Sides of Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and AI\u003c/a> — Jo Ann Oravec, Professor at the University of Wisconsin\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we look like influencers right now? Is this embarrassing to be walking up to a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is me and my friend \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harri Weber\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> booking my first ride in a Waymo. It’s a self -driving car service. Some people also call them robo-taxis. Wait, I think I have to unlock it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, there we go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Morgan? No one’s going to respond. Waymo’s are, again, totally self -driving. There’s no human in the front seat. Hello from Waymo. As we get going, just give us one minute to cover a few… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I invited Harry because she’s also a tech journalist and she covers the future of cars. She recently wrote about the expansion of robo -taxis for courts. And also, we both had a craving for deli sandwiches from this one spot with terrible street parking. So why not take a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no one behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is there a real need for the steering wheel? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally, I don’t see any purpose for it, but for whatever reason, there’s, you know, national laws require this steering wheel to still be there. It’s a little ghostly though, right? It’s nudging us around, it’s keeping us in the lane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s are something of a tourist attraction in California. My cousins always wanna take one whenever they come to visit me. But honestly, ever since Waymo’s launch a few months ago in Los Angeles, where Harri and I live, I’ve been pretty hesitant to take them. Part of it is, yeah, I don’t really trust a robot to drive me around, especially not through a very busy intersection in Koreatown during rush hour. But that’s where this car picked us up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These things aren’t perfect. Something could go wrong while we’re driving or while it’s moving us around. But Waymo’s claim based on its own data is that it is a lot safer than a human driver. I think that you’re probably more likely to find that they’re a nuisance than they are dangerous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But despite their great track record when it comes to safety, I feel like Waymo mishaps are always going viral. Like a couple of weeks ago, there was a video of a Waymo in San Francisco, ignoring a public works crew and driving straight through a sinkhole. And then there was a video of a guy in Arizona who called a Waymo to take him to the airport, but got stuck in a parking lot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m in a Waymo car. This car is just going in circles. I got my seatbelt on, I can’t get out the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymos make me feel a little uneasy, but it’s really other people’s reactions to Waymos that makes me nervous about being in one. Even getting in, in front of that coffee shop, did you feel self -conscious? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it felt a little uncool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I felt so deeply uncool getting in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think something flipped when Google was first developing a driverless car. I think there was actually like a cool factor going, or maybe I was just that uncool that I thought it was cool. But tech criticism has evolved a lot since then. And so now we’re in this car and it does feel a little bit like we are maybe class traitors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it’s not just the uncool factor. Public reaction to Waymos has turned violent. Like this incident in San Francisco, where a bunch of guys started spray painting a Waymo while a group of women was inside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? Connecting to writer support. Call may be recorded. Oh my God. Oh my god! Holy shit! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is also a recent viral video of people swarming a Waymo in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the video so gracefully leaps into the air and drop kicks the passenger door right off the hinges, while another person beats the Waymo’s windshield with a ripped off piece of its own front bumper. To be clear, it doesn’t seem like any living person has been hurt in any of these incidents, unless you count getting a little car sick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But to a lot of people, including myself, I’ll be honest, something about seeing robots do a human task just does not feel right. And clearly, it triggers some deep-seated instinct to attack. So what is behind this recent outburst of aggression against Waymos? Is it just that destroying them makes really good content that’s bound to go viral? Or is it our collective anxiety over the state of tech right now? This is Close All Tabs. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. People are justifiably jaded against Silicon Valley and the idea of a robot takeover would make anyone nervous. But why take it out on Waymo? All right, we’re gonna kick this off like we usually do. A new tab, Waymo Vandalism. We’re gonna talk to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellen Huet\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She covers technology and Silicon Valley and startup culture for Bloomberg, or as she puts it, all things at the intersection of tech and humans. And she wrote about how Waymo’s recent expansion provoked so -called AI anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as long as these cars have been around in their various iterations, so probably over the last decade or so, people have reacted to them with suspicion and at times with violence. Like even back in 2018 when early Waymo vehicles were being tested in Arizona, people threw rocks at them, people like attacked the cars. Even if these cases are rare, it has been somewhat consistent that people react to robot cars at times with anger or violence or like attempting to kind of outsmart them. You know, there are early stories of people who figured out that you could confuse autonomous cars by putting a traffic cone on the hood of the car. Right, I’ve seen that. And I – Yeah, and like, there’s clearly some human impulse to try to almost like assert agency or control over this vehicle that, you know, in some existential sense is kind of a threat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to wonder how much product design plays a role in ensuring that people are more receptive to these cars. I mean, I’m thinking of, you know, that 2000s movie, Herbie Fully Loaded, how it’s like a cutesy little buggy. And if I saw that driving around, I wouldn’t want to, like, beat that up. But when I see, like, a Cybertruck, I’m like, oh, fight or flight, activated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I guarantee lots of designers have spent a lot of time and energy thinking about this question. I remember, it must have been a decade ago, you know, I was a tech reporter, I was working at Forbes and I was invited to take a test drive in an early autonomous car. And what I remember most is that those early cars were designed to look so cute. Like it was like a little gumdrop shaped car and it was white and like its headlights We’re kind of that like. oval shape to make it look like, you know, like these cute little cartoon eyes. And yeah, I guarantee that designers and engineers spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this threatening-ish technology seem as cute and approachable as possible. But yeah, Waymo’s are obviously like kind of just like a normal-looking car. My guess is it’s not coincidence that they’re all white. maybe people associate that with, like, sort of angelic energy or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But let’s talk about what’s at the root of this feeling that a lot of people have when confronted with a robot doing a human job. That is a new tab. Ready? Waymo and AI anxiety. Okay, so a lot of this anger against Waymo’s is due to the very real risk of job loss as robo-taxis begin replacing human drivers. But it’s also bigger than that. AI is moving into a lot of areas besides cars. In her story about this spike in Waymo vandalism, Ellen cited University of Wisconsin professor Jo Anne Oravec, who said that a lot of people are just not really comfortable with the realization that something else is intelligent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think people sometimes direct their general anxiety about, like, job displacement from AI toward Waymos just because these are objects that exist in the physical world and that you can actually smash the windshield of a Waymo car in the way that you can’t quite attack ChatGPT, right? Like, I think in some sense they’re at a disadvantage by simply being, like, a physical object. And something that you are reminded of every time, you know, one drives by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the cars have also done things that are genuinely annoying. Like in San Francisco, there was this cluster of Waymo cars that had gotten trapped in a honking war with each other. So they were like up at the middle of the night, you know, it’s like 4:30 in the morning. And neighbors who were trying to sleep near wherever these cars are gathered were being woken up at night by the sound of all of these cars honking at each other. And like in the most nonsensical way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term AI can mean a lot of different things. Autonomous vehicles like Waymo do use artificial intelligence. They use cameras to see, they’re trained to recognize objects and calculate the distance between them. But it’s pretty different from how a generative AI tool like ChatGPT works, or how other AI generators work to produce images, videos, and music. But to a lot of people, the anxiety is the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think what makes people have this reaction, regardless of what type of AI it is, is that these products are being designed to do actions and take on jobs and responsibilities that used to be solely the jurisdiction of humans, right? So it used to be like only people could see and drive and manipulate a car and now we can see that a human is not needed to do that. And it used to be that a human was needed to provide half of a conversation, you couldn’t have that, you know, without another person on the other side of the line. Now, that’s no longer true. So I think what we’re seeing is, even though the technology is different, in some cases and in some ways, the human reaction to it is the same. Because I think it’s provoking the same question of, well, where do I belong in this world where this thing that I used to do can be done by a non-human entity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a Waymo ad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Advertisement: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, it’s finally happening. The robots, they’re coming. Maybe that’s a good thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And like, Waymo’s clearly playing into people’s concerns about the robots, but putting like this positive spin on it. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, an ad like that makes me laugh because I just imagine, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the marketing discussions that led to that copy because I’m sure they were like, guys, we have to address the fact that some people are scared of this, but let’s make it cheeky, let’s make it funny. There are researchers out there who study human-robot relations and some of the things that they explained to me were like these human-like. objects that can move with some intelligence in our world feel existentially unsettling to us because we don’t know where we fall in the pecking order anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And don’t forget, we’ve been consuming so much sci-fi about how super advanced robots can totally disrupt our way of life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>I, Robot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robots don’t feel fear. They don’t feel anything. They don’t get hungry. They don’t sleep. I do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>M3gan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Megan, turn off. Are you sure? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>2001: A Space Odyssey: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This pop culture fear of artificial intelligence and robots taking over has been around for a while, but it hasn’t been limited to the screen. Physical attacks on robots have been happening for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A classic example is the story of Hitchbot. And the story of Hitchbot starts back in 2013 when a group of researchers decided they wanted to try to answer the question, can robots trust humans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hitchbot will be depending on the kindness and the curiosity of strangers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Hitchbot was this little humanoid robot that couldn’t really do much, but it was on a mission to hitchhike across Canada. It had a stocky, cylindrical body and goofy arms and legs made out of pool noodles. Its head had an LED panel with a little smiley face. Hitchbot couldn’t move on its own. It could only recognize human speech and engage in basic conversations, mostly to ask bystanders for help. It also had a GPS and took pictures of its surroundings every 20 minutes so that researchers could keep tabs on it. I mean, it was pretty adorable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on its first few journeys, everything went fine. Like, people really got excited about this idea and wanted to contribute to helping the robot get from point A to point B. So Hitchbot traveled across Canada and traveled around Europe. And then in 2015, Hitchbot tried to do a cross-country trip across the United States and started in Boston. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Hitchbot only made it to Philadelphia, where it was tragically attacked and decapitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the bench Hitchbot was killed on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh really? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know the story of Hitchbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it made it around the world and it died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It didn’t make it around the world because it died in Philadelphia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe they wanted to reassert their power or dominance over a human-like object and feel secure in their place as humans. But yeah, I think the story of Hitchbot tells us a lot about the psychology of humans versus robots. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. And that Waymos may not be ready for Philly yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seems possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK, clearly, there’s something here about robots that makes us uncomfortable. People don’t always respond well to things that look a little too human or act kind of human, but aren’t quite human. So aside from making the cars cuter in hopes that people won’t attack them, is there anything else Waymo can do? When I scroll past one of these videos of someone spray painting one of the cars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or blocking its way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get out of the way! Move! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or, worst case scenario, harassing someone inside, which did happen in San Francisco. With these videos, I’ve always wondered, why can’t the car just back up and drive away? Any human driver would. We’ll get into that and some other very thorny questions after this break. As this technology progresses, what are the implications of robots making their own decisions in these very high-stakes situations? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that is a new tab. “The ethics of self-driving cars.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To dig into this, I called up \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan Calo\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He’s a legal scholar and a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. And his specialty? Robot law. So he had his own theory about what makes Waymo’s so attractive to vandalize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s the fact that they’re doing something transgressive where they’re, you know, they are of course vandalizing like an entity, an agent, but very much falls short of doing violence to a human being. Obviously these same people wouldn’t run up to a human being or a human cab driver and spray paint them. But the point of the matter is that, you know, there is this unease about these technologies, has to do with their novelty, has to do with their being too close to being these anthropomorphic agents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By anthropomorphic, Ryan means having human -like characteristics, even if it isn’t actually human. Yeah, I live in L.A., which has horrendous traffic, and so I watch a Waymo, try to make a U-turn, and get cut off at every possible opportunity, and I feel bad for it. What’s going on with that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s hard not to empathize, right? The fact is, is that human beings are quite bad at categorizing robots as either things or people. And the more anthropomorphic a technology is, the harder that is. So what’s really interesting about Waymo is, apparently, it’s associated as much with being a car as it is with being an entity. I always thought that if the vandalism were occurring inside the car, right? So sometimes people vandalize the interior of a Waymo because they’re just there by themselves, seemingly, Right? And it’s one thing to put a camera there, but if you were to put like an anthropomorphic robot driver in the Waymo that looked back at you when you get in to say, “Hey, where can I take you?” And also could be, was visible. Like when you saw the Waymo trying to make a U -turn, you saw like a person in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s struggling. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever it was, it’s struggling. Or when somebody went to vandalize this thing, cause it to crash, you know, cause it to shut down, like vandalize it. And there’s this android in there looking at you that looks like a person. I think the outcome would be different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan’s theory is that because Waymo’s don’t resemble any living thing, it’s easier to justify being violent. And sure, passengers would probably be creeped out by a robot doll in the driver’s seat, but maybe people would be discouraged from attacking it because there’s another human-ish thing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this concept called the uncanny valley. The deal is, it’s a valley, is that appreciation of the robot goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up, the more anthropomorphic it becomes, but then suddenly when it gets super close to actually like a human, it precipitously drops before coming back if it’s completely like a human, right? That’s the valley. Now, Waymo cars… They do not look like people, right? So they really are very far down on that curve. They’re more thrilling to vandalize than a mailbox. I just don’t see it happening with something that felt more like a person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. You have written about the legal quandaries of self-driving cars, and when they first started hitting the road about five or so years ago, people were mostly worried about passenger safety and crashes. And it seems like companies like Waymo were maybe not so prepared for, like, the irate protesters?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to talk specifically about vandalism, this has messed up people working in AI and robotics for a long time, and so it shouldn’t really have surprised Waymo. I don’t know how one guards against it, right? Think about, Morgan, do you recall the time when Microsoft released that chatbot called Tay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh my god. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microsoft trains this chatbot early. This is pre-OpenAI and so on, and they released this Twitter-based chatbot that’s supposed to learn how to interact. Within an hour, there are these people, trolls on the Internet, getting it to say all kinds of racist and terrible things. They end up having to take the chatbot down. When the company was asked about “Why did this happen?” They’re like, “Well, we just didn’t anticipate that folks would do this,” unfortunately. The truth is about technology, especially like new emerging technology, you just don’t know how it’s going to play out in society. In fact, this leads some law professors like myself, to conclude that technology is a particularly difficult thing to regulate, because you don’t know how it’s going to play out in advance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back in 2018, Ryan wrote an essay in Slate about whether the law was ready for self-driving cars. And in it, he refutes a common critique of this technology that has to do with the old philosophical dilemma known as the trolley problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trolley problem is this thought experiment about making decisions. You’ve got a train chugging along a track and it’s heading toward five people. But you, the decision maker, can flip a switch and direct the train to another track. Here’s the twist. There’s another single person stuck to that other track. So do you flip the switch? Save five people, but by making that decision, kill another? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the kind of thought experiment people love to refer to when puzzling over the morality of autonomous vehicles and other forms of AI. It’s the assumption that self -driving cars will have to make the same kinds of moral decisions. But Ryan says the engineers of these vehicles, and we as a public, should worry less about these philosophical hypotheticals and more about the practical real-life situations that these cars might face. Programming a moral compass is still up for debate. But programming object recognition is way more realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just imagine that a driverless car is always gonna be better than a person at avoiding a stroller in a parking lot. Always better because it’s better sensors, better response times, whatever. And the driverless car is also always gonna be better than a human being in avoiding a shopping cart, okay? But what happens if a driverless car encounters a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time. Imagine that the car confused about what to do and not able to differentiate between these two objects ends up making the wrong decision. Well, the headline reads, “Robot car kills baby to save groceries.” That’s the end of driverless cars in America, if that happens. So the thing that’s fascinating, with driverless car liability is it actually really matters the fact that driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn’t, even if they mess up less overall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Ryan, as an expert in robot law, do you think driverless cars will have rights at some point, the way that humans do when they get into an accident? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I will say is that we are very far from a situation where AI or robots will be able to claim rights the way that people have them. And even though some doomsayers claim that AI is going to wake up and kill everybody, you know, like the first time I see a presentation where like PowerPoint works perfectly, that will be when I worry about, you know, AV before AI. Like we’re just very far away from getting to that level of sophistication. Yeah but one day maybe, and at that time we’re really going to have to have an overhaul or a sea change in the law because suddenly there will be an entity that has rights and responsibilities but is not like us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The robot takeover is not going to happen anytime soon, but the friction between humans and these non-human counterparts, that’s only going to increase as AI creeps more and more into our lives. I’m gonna be honest, I thought that ride I took with my friend Harry was actually really nice. It was a nice temperature in there, the AC was going, there were lo -fi beats playing at such a reasonable volume. It didn’t smell weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s part of me that’s a little disappointed because, you know, I’m a little bit of a hater and so I want, I want to drive through cement. I want that to, I want to be the one who gets to, gets to like roll their eyes at these things that are sort of just. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inexplicably irksome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are we getting Waymo pilled? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re getting Waymo pilled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I just don’t, I don’t wanna give in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pull the handle twice to exit. The first pull unlocks. The second opens the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, we’re pulling up to the curb now. There’s an older man at the crosswalk kind of just glaring this Waymo down and I feel really weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The deep shame, the shame! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to admit, it would have been great content if something wild did happen during my first Waymo ride. But like the majority of rides, it was pretty uneventful. It almost felt normal. And maybe that’s the real robot takeover. It’s the gradual, boring replacement of our everyday human interactions. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound Design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa with additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED Podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dust Silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram at CloseAllTabsPod. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Authorities in Southern California have issued evacuation warnings for parts of Los Angeles County that were scorched by wildfires last month, as heavy rains in the region increase the risks of dangerous mudslides in those areas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Artificial Intelligence is being touted as the next big advancement to take almost every industry into a new direction, and at one of the world’s largest agriculture expos, AI evangelists see the new tech as the next big advancement in farming.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AI Firms Hope to Deliver a New Era of Efficiency in Agriculture\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026700/world-ag-expo-kicks-off-in-tulare-county\">This year’s World Ag Expo\u003c/a> in California’s Tulare County is drawing thousands of visitors from across the globe to see cutting-edge farming and harvesting equipment, designed to make one of the the world’s oldest vocations easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big features that many manufacturers are touting as the future of farming is equipment that uses AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From \u003ca href=\"https://www.flypyka.com/\">autonomous crop sprayers \u003c/a>to \u003ca href=\"https://farmwiselabs.com/\">AI powered weed pullers\u003c/a>, the tech is being lauded as the best new way that farmers can cut their costs, maximize efficiency and reduce reliance on environmentally harmful pesticides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Atmospheric Rivers are Raising Mudslide and Flood Risks throughout California\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Southern California grapples with the strongest storm system of the winter to hit the region, authorities have issues evacuation warnings in parts of \u003ca href=\"https://lacounty.gov/emergency/\">the Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, Malibu and other parts of LA County that were scorched in last months wildfires, due to risks of mudslides.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have set up concrete barriers known as K-rails throughout the high risk areas in order to keep debris in the streets and away from homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said that the nature of the weather and mudslide risks mean that residents in areas under evacuation warnings need to be prepared to leave, and it is not clear when they would be allowed to return if the worst comes to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026874/bay-area-heavy-rain-flooding-landslides-thousands-without-power\">Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, an atmospheric river is pounding the region.\u003c/a> The California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate Division said that road flooding and vehicle spinouts have been prevalent throughout the region, as cars hit the road during rush hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950931/map-pge-power-outages\">PG&E’s service map shows that power outages are happening throughout the Bay Area\u003c/a>, with the largest blackout impacting thousands of customers in South San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service said that the heavy rains and gusty winds are hitting residents in the Santa Cruz mountains the hardest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The atmospheric river could bring down as much as an inch of rain per hour in some parts of the Bay Area, as well winds reaching up to speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>The parents of Suchir Balaji, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/openai\">OpenAI\u003c/a> critic who was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November, are suing the city to force the release of records related to their son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner have said the 26-year-old’s death was a suicide, but a full autopsy has not yet been released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Balaji’s parents have said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020909/openai-whistleblowers-death-sf-parents-skeptical-citys-investigation\">believe foul play was involved\u003c/a> in his death, and Kevin J. Rooney, a lawyer representing the family, cast doubt on the official determination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that there are lots of facts and evidence that are inconsistent with this being a suicide,” Rooney said. “We believe that it was a homicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Balaji quit his job as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI in August and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/openai-copyright-law.html\">spoke out in \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about the company’s use of copyrighted data. Roughly a month later — a week after he was named as a potential witness for a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft — Balaji was found dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020377\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020377\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balaji Ramamurthy (left) and Poornima Ramarao, parents of Suchir Balaji, stand next to the apartment building where their son lived in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Balaji’s mother, Poornima Ramarao, believes that because no report has been released, the police have not investigated her son’s case. “What bothers us is that the police are not doing any investigations,” Ramarao said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SFPD has previously said the investigation is active and being led by the medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12020909 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250105-BalajiDeathOpenAI-09-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They should release the report. And it’s very obvious without doing the investigations, they’re just making press releases that the investigation is active and open,” Ramarao said. “It becomes more obvious that this is a cover-up because if it’s really what they’re claiming, why would they hold on to the report?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney said he wished they didn’t have to file the petition but hopes the legal action will prompt clearer communication — noting that the city has said the investigation was closed without releasing a report, then said it could not release a report because the investigation was open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney, who previously worked on homicide investigations, said there are good reasons to keep certain details private, “but you should at least be updating the family on where we are or what they’re pursuing, at least in general terms. And there’s been no such communication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney formerly worked as a prosecutor in New York City at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and then in his hometown of Stockton. “It should be a collaborative effort to try to figure out what happened and, when a crime has been committed, to bring the people who committed that crime to justice,” he said of death investigations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Months since Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead in what officials ruled a suicide, his parents are still waiting to receive a final autopsy report.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The parents of Suchir Balaji, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/openai\">OpenAI\u003c/a> critic who was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November, are suing the city to force the release of records related to their son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner have said the 26-year-old’s death was a suicide, but a full autopsy has not yet been released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Balaji’s parents have said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020909/openai-whistleblowers-death-sf-parents-skeptical-citys-investigation\">believe foul play was involved\u003c/a> in his death, and Kevin J. Rooney, a lawyer representing the family, cast doubt on the official determination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that there are lots of facts and evidence that are inconsistent with this being a suicide,” Rooney said. “We believe that it was a homicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Balaji quit his job as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI in August and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/openai-copyright-law.html\">spoke out in \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about the company’s use of copyrighted data. Roughly a month later — a week after he was named as a potential witness for a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft — Balaji was found dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020377\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020377\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250103-BalajiDeathOpenAI-04-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balaji Ramamurthy (left) and Poornima Ramarao, parents of Suchir Balaji, stand next to the apartment building where their son lived in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Balaji’s mother, Poornima Ramarao, believes that because no report has been released, the police have not investigated her son’s case. “What bothers us is that the police are not doing any investigations,” Ramarao said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SFPD has previously said the investigation is active and being led by the medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They should release the report. And it’s very obvious without doing the investigations, they’re just making press releases that the investigation is active and open,” Ramarao said. “It becomes more obvious that this is a cover-up because if it’s really what they’re claiming, why would they hold on to the report?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney said he wished they didn’t have to file the petition but hopes the legal action will prompt clearer communication — noting that the city has said the investigation was closed without releasing a report, then said it could not release a report because the investigation was open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney, who previously worked on homicide investigations, said there are good reasons to keep certain details private, “but you should at least be updating the family on where we are or what they’re pursuing, at least in general terms. And there’s been no such communication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney formerly worked as a prosecutor in New York City at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and then in his hometown of Stockton. “It should be a collaborative effort to try to figure out what happened and, when a crime has been committed, to bring the people who committed that crime to justice,” he said of death investigations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "ai-is-bringing-nuclear-power-back-from-the-dead-maybe-even-in-california",
"title": "Will California Revive Nuclear Power to Feed AI Energy Demands?",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you’ve used ChatGPT to write a breakup text or figure out how to not burn the Christmas roast, you might’ve actually helped create jobs and profits in California, where the artificial intelligence tool was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you’ve probably also contributed to climate change. Artificial intelligence is an energy hog, and every query to ChatGPT is like running a lightbulb for 20 minutes, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/10/nx-s1-5028558/artificial-intelligences-thirst-for-electricity\">research scientist recently told NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artificial intelligence is so wasteful, in fact, that its rapid spread could endanger California’s goal of eliminating all carbon emissions by 2045 — even as AI companies may be \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/10/ca-corporate-tax-revenue-surge/\">flooding the state treasury with tax revenue\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conundrum has legislators considering what was once unthinkable: Bringing back nuclear power as a driver of innovation and economic growth, sort of like it was the 1960s all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers are pushing for exemptions to the state’s 49-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants; they’re also mulling a possible future for the once-left-for-dead Diablo Canyon on the Central Coast, the state’s last operational plant whose operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, said it is prepared for the possibility of the plant staying open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the signs of a subtle shift among state legislators and agencies, who just a few years ago seemed assured in their determination to close the book on nuclear power in California. They are being encouraged by a few outside influences: \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/climate-google-environmental-report-greenhouse-gases-emissions-3ccf95b9125831d66e676e811ece8a18\">Sweating their own emissions goals,\u003c/a> the state’s Big Tech companies have begun national efforts to rejuvenate the carbon-neutral energy source. And last summer, federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws/advance-act.html\">overwhelmingly passed a bill\u003c/a>, signed by President Biden, to accelerate the development of nuclear reactors and new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been a couple times where there’s been momentum, where people use the word ‘renaissance’” around nuclear energy, said Maureen Zawalick, PG&E vice president of business and technical services. “But nothing like it is now, where there’s bipartisan support, a significant amount of federal funding, programs and incentives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic State Sen. Henry Stern, a member of the Senate Energy Committee and an environmental attorney, was mentored by anti-nuclear advocates/environmentalists and has been a critic of Diablo Canyon and PG&E. But he, too, believes “there’s going to be broader and broader bipartisan support to just put this stuff on the table,” he said, referencing certain forms of nuclear energy in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible artificial intelligence could grow more energy efficient, reducing the need for new power plants. Energy stocks \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/deepseek-is-upending-wall-streets-big-ai-power-trade-0e649925?st=agHiPL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\">recently sold off\u003c/a> after a Chinese company, DeepSeek, unveiled a powerful AI model it said was produced with a fraction of the resources used by its American rivals. The accuracy of those claims and how DeepSeek might change industry practices are hotly debated.[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='nuclear-power']Even assuming AI continues to stoke demand for electricity, nuclear power remains anathema to much of the statehouse, which in the last legislative session kept a measure to partially lift the moratorium bottled up in committee. Reactors are consistent sources of energy but also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, requiring stringent regulatory oversight, staffing, and upkeep. Disposing of radioactive waste is a time-intensive process with potential environmental harms, and there are always concerns of catastrophic outcomes at nuclear facilities: reactor meltdowns, cyberattacks, and other security threats. Building new facilities in the state means lifting the moratorium and clearing not only the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission but also a thicket of California agencies like the Public Utilities Commission, Water Resources Control Board and, depending on site location, potentially the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are among the reasons nuclear power skeptics are dubious of a comeback. Critics similarly question the merits of an emerging, allegedly safer form of nuclear power known as small modular reactors and whether tech companies are committed in their push for nuclear or if they’ll lose interest once they face the inevitable headwinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nuclear is desperate to seem relevant, new, and improved,” said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at George Washington University who specializes in the risks posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Of the use of nuclear power to power AI she added that “it’s a marriage that looks good on paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Big Tech ushers in a round of nuclear hype\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Renewed interest in nuclear harkens back to earlier times. President Richard Nixon \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/science/earth/19antinuke.html\">once called\u003c/a> for the construction of 1,000 nuclear reactors in the United States by the year 2000. That moonshot missed by roughly 900 reactors, and there are approximately 90 commercial reactors today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech companies have signaled that they’d like to boost those numbers — and they’ve already taken steps outside of California to harness nuclear power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/09/20/accelerating-the-addition-of-carbon-free-energy-an-update-on-progress/\">Citing the need\u003c/a> to add “carbon-free electricity and capacity in the grids where we operate,” \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/8f47ba63a7aab8831a7805dfde0e2c39\">Microsoft signed a deal\u003c/a> in late September to eventually get one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in southeastern Pennsylvania, site of a partial meltdown in 1979, back up and running. In mid-October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-nuclear-small-modular-reactor-net-carbon-zero\">Amazon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google\u003c/a> separately announced agreements with energy companies—one of which, Kairos Power, is based in California—that are in the business of designing small modular reactors. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google wrote\u003c/a> in a statement about its deal with Kairos Power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sustainability.atmeta.com/blog/2024/12/03/accelerating-the-next-wave-of-nuclear-to-power-ai-innovation/\">Meta announced\u003c/a> in early December that it was seeking proposals from nuclear energy developers who could help in the pursuit of “AI innovation and sustainability objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big tech’s ambitions for new plants are especially focused on small modular reactors. The idea behind the reactors is that they’d function as mini-reactors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs\">producing up to roughly one-third of the energy\u003c/a> as a conventional facility, but with factory-designed components that could be shipped to a predetermined location. This would, in theory, cut down on costs, allow for more flexible siting, and reduce the lengthy construction period typical for larger nuclear reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/topics/small-modular-reactors\">characterized\u003c/a> proposed designs as simpler and safer than already-running reactors, and more recently, the Department of Energy\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-900-million-build-and-deploy-next-generation-nuclear\"> accepted applications\u003c/a> to help fund the design and development of these smaller reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that small reactors exist more in the abstract than in reality. “They’re totally unproven. They exist basically on a computer,” said Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Obama administration. “Nuclear reactors aren’t like software or social media products. They’re not fungible in the same way. … You can’t apply the tech bro mentality to these nuclear facilities, but that is what is happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Squassoni \u003ca href=\"https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/7/1053/files/2024/04/NewNuclearRisk_Report_2024_v4-1-0b59385f1c7d4153.pdf\">released a study in April 2024 (PDF)\u003c/a> noting that, “Although they are marketed as new and advanced, small modular reactors so far feature few true innovations among the scores of designs. Quite a few are old wine in new bottles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than Microsoft’s Three Mile Island investment, and a Bill Gates-backed venture in Wyoming, it’s hard to say which other states could someday house the tech industry’s hypothetical nuclear facilities — small reactors or otherwise. California is currently one of the only states that \u003cem>isn’t\u003c/em> an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/Nuclear_Power_Reactors_in_California_ada.pdf\">In 1976\u003c/a>, a California law placed a moratorium on the development of additional nuclear facility sites in the state until the federal government could come up with a permanent nuclear waste disposal plan. The moratorium was largely in response to environmentalist and anti-nuclear groups in California. Almost five decades later, the federal government still has not figured out a permanent disposal method. Nowadays, spent fuel often ends up in dry casks, which are generally considered a solid, but interim, solution for storing radioactive waste. California remains one of nine states with a nuclear energy moratorium, \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-nuclear-moratorium\">according to the Department of Energy\u003c/a>. Four states have repealed their moratoriums since 2016, and Illinois recently carved out an exemption for the construction of small modular reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Southern California Edison announced it would shutter reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jun-07-la-me-0608-san-onofre-20130608-story.html\">due to defects in new steam generators\u003c/a>. That reduced California’s nuclear energy arsenal to just the two reactors at Diablo Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues at San Onofre, in addition to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, further limited California lawmakers’ appetite for nuclear energy. Diablo Canyon was scheduled to shut down beginning in 2024, but those plans have been postponed a half-decade. The site’s two remaining reactors are a vital part of California’s power grid, even more so because of environmental concerns brought about by climate change, as well as the state’s growing energy needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The legislators trying to spark a chain reaction in the Capitol\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest tech companies are racing to train and develop AI tools, which require immense amounts of electricity. The exact metrics, as far as total AI energy consumption is concerned, remain murky, largely because\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/24066646/ai-electricity-energy-watts-generative-consumption\"> the tech industry has been murky\u003c/a> on the subject. It’s clear, though, that tech companies are reliant on big, windowless data centers to power AI, and that these data centers are extremely energy-intensive — and prevalent in California. The \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-08-12/california-data-centers-could-derail-clean-energy-goals\">reported in August\u003c/a> that the state has at least 270 data centers, many clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Silicon Valley. Tech companies have eyed dozens more data centers up and down the state, the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sorts of statistics are a major concern for California lawmakers. “Tech is a new part of the equation because of data centers, AI, and all these things,” said Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a proponent of nuclear energy from the Sacramento suburbs. “The reality is that even before all of that, our grid was not nearly prepared for the energy demands of a clean energy future. And so I am a big believer that nuclear energy needs to be part of that conversation.”[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1995286,news_12020857,news_11987803\"]Hoover is referring to California’s power grid and the state’s mandatory transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-renewable-energy-law-signed-20180910-story.html\">under a 2018 measure\u003c/a>. California has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/08/california-clean-power-progress-grid/\">made significant strides\u003c/a> toward the target but \u003ca href=\"https://gridclue.com/StateProfile?rs=California\">scores a low D- rating\u003c/a> for its resilience to extreme weather events and other disruptive threats, according to measurements by the nonprofit Grid Clue. Despite an ongoing shift to renewables, California is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and its grid is increasingly under peril because of wildfires, heat waves, and other weather events linked to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon provides roughly 9% of the state’s electricity, which is partly why Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/03/02/photos-governor-newsom-visits-diablo-canyon-power-plant/\">supported extending the use of its reactors to 2029 and 2030\u003c/a>. “That struck me as a courageous decision and the right decision, and I would hope that that’s reflective of his belief to look at all different energy sources,” said Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon, who represents Newport Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives for PG&E, which owns and operates Diablo Canyon, have typically adopted a defensive posture when asked about their nuclear facility and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/pge-bills-diablo-canyon-19821155.php\">cost overruns\u003c/a> it routinely incurs. But the utility company has been singing a different tune lately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zawalick, the PG&E vice president, demurred when asked if she thinks Diablo Canyon will ultimately stay open past the station’s latest deadline. “We have to be asked by the state legislators to go longer than 2030,” she said. “But we will be ready, is what I say. And we’re planning to be.” She told CalMatters she hasn’t had any “formal” conversations with tech companies about Diablo Canyon’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern described Diablo Canyon as a “cost-suck” and “old,” adding, “If you were building new nuclear, you would not build it like Diablo Canyon.” But Stern conceded that San Onofre’s shutdown strained the state’s energy grid (it also led to more greenhouse gas production), and he’s come to accept Diablo Canyon’s role, at least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who represents Fresno and has co-sponsored nuclear energy legislation, also worries “about what would occur if a member of our energy portfolio was taken offline, how that would increase rates for the rest of us.” Hoover echoed Arambula’s view and said he wants Diablo Canyon to stay open indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opening for small modular reactors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon is one (complicated) piece of the nuclear puzzle. Then there’s the separate conundrum of whether to roll back all, or some, of the state’s nuclear energy moratorium. As it stands, Republican lawmakers are the political faction that has pushed to change the moratorium. Last year, Dixon was a cosponsor of \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2092\">Assembly Bill 2092\u003c/a>, which would’ve asked the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a feasibility studies about the possible benefits and effects of small modular reactors by the beginning of 2027. The bill never got a vote on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s good to have stretch goals,” Dixon said of the state’s zero emissions target. “But we have to be mindful of the impact on the local economy, on jobs, and driving businesses out of California. I want to at least start the process to study this important possible new alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another recent proposal, \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab65\">Assembly Bill 65,\u003c/a> would’ve created a moratorium exemption for the development of small modular reactors. Hoover and Arambula were co-sponsors on AB 65, and Arambula said he hopes to introduce a similar measure in the 2025–26 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2023, the last time lawmakers debated the bill to allow small modular reactors, Arambula was one of few Democratic politicians to publicly back pro-nuclear legislation. Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Rick Zbur, for instance, told his colleagues he couldn’t support the measure because, while he “used to be someone who believed that nuclear was part of the solution to a carbon-free future,” he changed his views after the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. “I don’t think that the California public supports this,” he continued. “I don’t think that we need this to get to a carbon-free future.” (Zbur confirmed to CalMatters that his stance hasn’t changed of late.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other prominent Democratic politicians are beginning to sound more bullish on nuclear energy sources. Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco told CalMatters that he’s noticed “a gradual increased openness among Democrats to nuclear,” and that he thinks nuclear “should certainly be part of the conversation.” Stern, the Senate environment committee member, said he’s interested in giving consideration to some nuclear power bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern previously authored a law that required the California Energy Commission, in consultation with other state agencies, to write an assessment of commercially feasible energy sources. That assessment, \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=21-ESR-01\">which was released in August 2024\u003c/a>, suggested more research and development into small modular reactors and recommended that the legislature pass a law to exempt such reactors from the state’s nuclear moratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Newsom’s office left the door open to the possibility of small modular reactors and a nuclear moratorium exemption in California. “The Governor has always maintained an interest in new, promising technologies, including advancements in emerging nuclear power technologies, that follow strong safety, cost, and environmental considerations,” Newsom’s Deputy Director of Communications Daniel Villaseñor wrote to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, the new chair of the Senate Energy Committee, also left the door open to nuclear technologies in California: “Climate change is an urgent crisis demanding a comprehensive and proactive response,” the Silicon Valley Democrat wrote in a statement. “To address it effectively, we must consider every viable solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens next?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 2025–26 legislative session will be instructive in showing state lawmakers’ willingness to embrace nuclear energy. Any policy changes in California — followed by a hypothetical nuclear site selection process — would proceed at a slow, methodical pace, the exact opposite of how tech companies prefer to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to needing to get a carve-out from the state’s nuclear moratorium and approvals from various state and federal entities, nuclear plant builders could well face lawsuits and other pushback from anti-nuclear groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all those factors in mind, the legislative session will \u003cem>also \u003c/em>reveal whether tech companies feel emboldened to push for nuclear energy sites in California, or if they’re satisfied pursuing their energy needs in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, just because many key AI companies are based in California doesn’t mean their data centers have to be. The recent failed bills to permit some kind of nuclear power in California were proposed shortly before tech’s fast and furious incursion into the nuclear energy space and thus weren’t part of the industry’s 2023–24 legislative lobbying efforts. Public support and lobbying for the two bills came from a handful of relatively small pro-nuclear advocacy groups, as well as a handful of labor groups, and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear trade association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too soon to tell how serious these tech firms are about promoting nuclear energy to power their electricity needs,” Squassoni said. “It could be a fad — it could be that once they get a real whiff of the costs and time it takes to build new plants, they may back off a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers who spoke to CalMatters said they aren’t against tech companies joining in on broader policy debates around California’s energy grid. Hoover said tech’s nascent nuclear interest may “allow for new conversations to happen,” while Wiener characterized the industry’s involvement as a “positive thing,” so long as companies participate in expanded clean energy initiatives that aren’t exclusively nuclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern, for his part, posited that tech’s interest “certainly doesn’t hurt the zeitgeist around nuclear being a less toxic and scary thing.” He added: “There’s some other incredible tech that, in a lot of cases, beats nuclear from a cost perspective. But it doesn’t quite make sense to me anymore that we don’t let nuclear compete in that contest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Will California Revive Nuclear Power to Feed AI Energy Demands? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’ve used ChatGPT to write a breakup text or figure out how to not burn the Christmas roast, you might’ve actually helped create jobs and profits in California, where the artificial intelligence tool was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you’ve probably also contributed to climate change. Artificial intelligence is an energy hog, and every query to ChatGPT is like running a lightbulb for 20 minutes, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/10/nx-s1-5028558/artificial-intelligences-thirst-for-electricity\">research scientist recently told NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artificial intelligence is so wasteful, in fact, that its rapid spread could endanger California’s goal of eliminating all carbon emissions by 2045 — even as AI companies may be \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/10/ca-corporate-tax-revenue-surge/\">flooding the state treasury with tax revenue\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conundrum has legislators considering what was once unthinkable: Bringing back nuclear power as a driver of innovation and economic growth, sort of like it was the 1960s all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers are pushing for exemptions to the state’s 49-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants; they’re also mulling a possible future for the once-left-for-dead Diablo Canyon on the Central Coast, the state’s last operational plant whose operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, said it is prepared for the possibility of the plant staying open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the signs of a subtle shift among state legislators and agencies, who just a few years ago seemed assured in their determination to close the book on nuclear power in California. They are being encouraged by a few outside influences: \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/climate-google-environmental-report-greenhouse-gases-emissions-3ccf95b9125831d66e676e811ece8a18\">Sweating their own emissions goals,\u003c/a> the state’s Big Tech companies have begun national efforts to rejuvenate the carbon-neutral energy source. And last summer, federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws/advance-act.html\">overwhelmingly passed a bill\u003c/a>, signed by President Biden, to accelerate the development of nuclear reactors and new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been a couple times where there’s been momentum, where people use the word ‘renaissance’” around nuclear energy, said Maureen Zawalick, PG&E vice president of business and technical services. “But nothing like it is now, where there’s bipartisan support, a significant amount of federal funding, programs and incentives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic State Sen. Henry Stern, a member of the Senate Energy Committee and an environmental attorney, was mentored by anti-nuclear advocates/environmentalists and has been a critic of Diablo Canyon and PG&E. But he, too, believes “there’s going to be broader and broader bipartisan support to just put this stuff on the table,” he said, referencing certain forms of nuclear energy in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible artificial intelligence could grow more energy efficient, reducing the need for new power plants. Energy stocks \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/deepseek-is-upending-wall-streets-big-ai-power-trade-0e649925?st=agHiPL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\">recently sold off\u003c/a> after a Chinese company, DeepSeek, unveiled a powerful AI model it said was produced with a fraction of the resources used by its American rivals. The accuracy of those claims and how DeepSeek might change industry practices are hotly debated.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Even assuming AI continues to stoke demand for electricity, nuclear power remains anathema to much of the statehouse, which in the last legislative session kept a measure to partially lift the moratorium bottled up in committee. Reactors are consistent sources of energy but also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, requiring stringent regulatory oversight, staffing, and upkeep. Disposing of radioactive waste is a time-intensive process with potential environmental harms, and there are always concerns of catastrophic outcomes at nuclear facilities: reactor meltdowns, cyberattacks, and other security threats. Building new facilities in the state means lifting the moratorium and clearing not only the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission but also a thicket of California agencies like the Public Utilities Commission, Water Resources Control Board and, depending on site location, potentially the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are among the reasons nuclear power skeptics are dubious of a comeback. Critics similarly question the merits of an emerging, allegedly safer form of nuclear power known as small modular reactors and whether tech companies are committed in their push for nuclear or if they’ll lose interest once they face the inevitable headwinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nuclear is desperate to seem relevant, new, and improved,” said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at George Washington University who specializes in the risks posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Of the use of nuclear power to power AI she added that “it’s a marriage that looks good on paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Big Tech ushers in a round of nuclear hype\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Renewed interest in nuclear harkens back to earlier times. President Richard Nixon \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/science/earth/19antinuke.html\">once called\u003c/a> for the construction of 1,000 nuclear reactors in the United States by the year 2000. That moonshot missed by roughly 900 reactors, and there are approximately 90 commercial reactors today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech companies have signaled that they’d like to boost those numbers — and they’ve already taken steps outside of California to harness nuclear power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/09/20/accelerating-the-addition-of-carbon-free-energy-an-update-on-progress/\">Citing the need\u003c/a> to add “carbon-free electricity and capacity in the grids where we operate,” \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/8f47ba63a7aab8831a7805dfde0e2c39\">Microsoft signed a deal\u003c/a> in late September to eventually get one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in southeastern Pennsylvania, site of a partial meltdown in 1979, back up and running. In mid-October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-nuclear-small-modular-reactor-net-carbon-zero\">Amazon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google\u003c/a> separately announced agreements with energy companies—one of which, Kairos Power, is based in California—that are in the business of designing small modular reactors. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google wrote\u003c/a> in a statement about its deal with Kairos Power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sustainability.atmeta.com/blog/2024/12/03/accelerating-the-next-wave-of-nuclear-to-power-ai-innovation/\">Meta announced\u003c/a> in early December that it was seeking proposals from nuclear energy developers who could help in the pursuit of “AI innovation and sustainability objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big tech’s ambitions for new plants are especially focused on small modular reactors. The idea behind the reactors is that they’d function as mini-reactors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs\">producing up to roughly one-third of the energy\u003c/a> as a conventional facility, but with factory-designed components that could be shipped to a predetermined location. This would, in theory, cut down on costs, allow for more flexible siting, and reduce the lengthy construction period typical for larger nuclear reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/topics/small-modular-reactors\">characterized\u003c/a> proposed designs as simpler and safer than already-running reactors, and more recently, the Department of Energy\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-900-million-build-and-deploy-next-generation-nuclear\"> accepted applications\u003c/a> to help fund the design and development of these smaller reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that small reactors exist more in the abstract than in reality. “They’re totally unproven. They exist basically on a computer,” said Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Obama administration. “Nuclear reactors aren’t like software or social media products. They’re not fungible in the same way. … You can’t apply the tech bro mentality to these nuclear facilities, but that is what is happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Squassoni \u003ca href=\"https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/7/1053/files/2024/04/NewNuclearRisk_Report_2024_v4-1-0b59385f1c7d4153.pdf\">released a study in April 2024 (PDF)\u003c/a> noting that, “Although they are marketed as new and advanced, small modular reactors so far feature few true innovations among the scores of designs. Quite a few are old wine in new bottles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than Microsoft’s Three Mile Island investment, and a Bill Gates-backed venture in Wyoming, it’s hard to say which other states could someday house the tech industry’s hypothetical nuclear facilities — small reactors or otherwise. California is currently one of the only states that \u003cem>isn’t\u003c/em> an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/Nuclear_Power_Reactors_in_California_ada.pdf\">In 1976\u003c/a>, a California law placed a moratorium on the development of additional nuclear facility sites in the state until the federal government could come up with a permanent nuclear waste disposal plan. The moratorium was largely in response to environmentalist and anti-nuclear groups in California. Almost five decades later, the federal government still has not figured out a permanent disposal method. Nowadays, spent fuel often ends up in dry casks, which are generally considered a solid, but interim, solution for storing radioactive waste. California remains one of nine states with a nuclear energy moratorium, \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-nuclear-moratorium\">according to the Department of Energy\u003c/a>. Four states have repealed their moratoriums since 2016, and Illinois recently carved out an exemption for the construction of small modular reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Southern California Edison announced it would shutter reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jun-07-la-me-0608-san-onofre-20130608-story.html\">due to defects in new steam generators\u003c/a>. That reduced California’s nuclear energy arsenal to just the two reactors at Diablo Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues at San Onofre, in addition to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, further limited California lawmakers’ appetite for nuclear energy. Diablo Canyon was scheduled to shut down beginning in 2024, but those plans have been postponed a half-decade. The site’s two remaining reactors are a vital part of California’s power grid, even more so because of environmental concerns brought about by climate change, as well as the state’s growing energy needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The legislators trying to spark a chain reaction in the Capitol\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest tech companies are racing to train and develop AI tools, which require immense amounts of electricity. The exact metrics, as far as total AI energy consumption is concerned, remain murky, largely because\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/24066646/ai-electricity-energy-watts-generative-consumption\"> the tech industry has been murky\u003c/a> on the subject. It’s clear, though, that tech companies are reliant on big, windowless data centers to power AI, and that these data centers are extremely energy-intensive — and prevalent in California. The \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-08-12/california-data-centers-could-derail-clean-energy-goals\">reported in August\u003c/a> that the state has at least 270 data centers, many clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Silicon Valley. Tech companies have eyed dozens more data centers up and down the state, the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sorts of statistics are a major concern for California lawmakers. “Tech is a new part of the equation because of data centers, AI, and all these things,” said Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a proponent of nuclear energy from the Sacramento suburbs. “The reality is that even before all of that, our grid was not nearly prepared for the energy demands of a clean energy future. And so I am a big believer that nuclear energy needs to be part of that conversation.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Hoover is referring to California’s power grid and the state’s mandatory transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-renewable-energy-law-signed-20180910-story.html\">under a 2018 measure\u003c/a>. California has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/08/california-clean-power-progress-grid/\">made significant strides\u003c/a> toward the target but \u003ca href=\"https://gridclue.com/StateProfile?rs=California\">scores a low D- rating\u003c/a> for its resilience to extreme weather events and other disruptive threats, according to measurements by the nonprofit Grid Clue. Despite an ongoing shift to renewables, California is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and its grid is increasingly under peril because of wildfires, heat waves, and other weather events linked to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon provides roughly 9% of the state’s electricity, which is partly why Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/03/02/photos-governor-newsom-visits-diablo-canyon-power-plant/\">supported extending the use of its reactors to 2029 and 2030\u003c/a>. “That struck me as a courageous decision and the right decision, and I would hope that that’s reflective of his belief to look at all different energy sources,” said Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon, who represents Newport Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives for PG&E, which owns and operates Diablo Canyon, have typically adopted a defensive posture when asked about their nuclear facility and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/pge-bills-diablo-canyon-19821155.php\">cost overruns\u003c/a> it routinely incurs. But the utility company has been singing a different tune lately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zawalick, the PG&E vice president, demurred when asked if she thinks Diablo Canyon will ultimately stay open past the station’s latest deadline. “We have to be asked by the state legislators to go longer than 2030,” she said. “But we will be ready, is what I say. And we’re planning to be.” She told CalMatters she hasn’t had any “formal” conversations with tech companies about Diablo Canyon’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern described Diablo Canyon as a “cost-suck” and “old,” adding, “If you were building new nuclear, you would not build it like Diablo Canyon.” But Stern conceded that San Onofre’s shutdown strained the state’s energy grid (it also led to more greenhouse gas production), and he’s come to accept Diablo Canyon’s role, at least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who represents Fresno and has co-sponsored nuclear energy legislation, also worries “about what would occur if a member of our energy portfolio was taken offline, how that would increase rates for the rest of us.” Hoover echoed Arambula’s view and said he wants Diablo Canyon to stay open indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opening for small modular reactors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon is one (complicated) piece of the nuclear puzzle. Then there’s the separate conundrum of whether to roll back all, or some, of the state’s nuclear energy moratorium. As it stands, Republican lawmakers are the political faction that has pushed to change the moratorium. Last year, Dixon was a cosponsor of \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2092\">Assembly Bill 2092\u003c/a>, which would’ve asked the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a feasibility studies about the possible benefits and effects of small modular reactors by the beginning of 2027. The bill never got a vote on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s good to have stretch goals,” Dixon said of the state’s zero emissions target. “But we have to be mindful of the impact on the local economy, on jobs, and driving businesses out of California. I want to at least start the process to study this important possible new alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another recent proposal, \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab65\">Assembly Bill 65,\u003c/a> would’ve created a moratorium exemption for the development of small modular reactors. Hoover and Arambula were co-sponsors on AB 65, and Arambula said he hopes to introduce a similar measure in the 2025–26 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2023, the last time lawmakers debated the bill to allow small modular reactors, Arambula was one of few Democratic politicians to publicly back pro-nuclear legislation. Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Rick Zbur, for instance, told his colleagues he couldn’t support the measure because, while he “used to be someone who believed that nuclear was part of the solution to a carbon-free future,” he changed his views after the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. “I don’t think that the California public supports this,” he continued. “I don’t think that we need this to get to a carbon-free future.” (Zbur confirmed to CalMatters that his stance hasn’t changed of late.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other prominent Democratic politicians are beginning to sound more bullish on nuclear energy sources. Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco told CalMatters that he’s noticed “a gradual increased openness among Democrats to nuclear,” and that he thinks nuclear “should certainly be part of the conversation.” Stern, the Senate environment committee member, said he’s interested in giving consideration to some nuclear power bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern previously authored a law that required the California Energy Commission, in consultation with other state agencies, to write an assessment of commercially feasible energy sources. That assessment, \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=21-ESR-01\">which was released in August 2024\u003c/a>, suggested more research and development into small modular reactors and recommended that the legislature pass a law to exempt such reactors from the state’s nuclear moratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Newsom’s office left the door open to the possibility of small modular reactors and a nuclear moratorium exemption in California. “The Governor has always maintained an interest in new, promising technologies, including advancements in emerging nuclear power technologies, that follow strong safety, cost, and environmental considerations,” Newsom’s Deputy Director of Communications Daniel Villaseñor wrote to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, the new chair of the Senate Energy Committee, also left the door open to nuclear technologies in California: “Climate change is an urgent crisis demanding a comprehensive and proactive response,” the Silicon Valley Democrat wrote in a statement. “To address it effectively, we must consider every viable solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens next?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 2025–26 legislative session will be instructive in showing state lawmakers’ willingness to embrace nuclear energy. Any policy changes in California — followed by a hypothetical nuclear site selection process — would proceed at a slow, methodical pace, the exact opposite of how tech companies prefer to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to needing to get a carve-out from the state’s nuclear moratorium and approvals from various state and federal entities, nuclear plant builders could well face lawsuits and other pushback from anti-nuclear groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all those factors in mind, the legislative session will \u003cem>also \u003c/em>reveal whether tech companies feel emboldened to push for nuclear energy sites in California, or if they’re satisfied pursuing their energy needs in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, just because many key AI companies are based in California doesn’t mean their data centers have to be. The recent failed bills to permit some kind of nuclear power in California were proposed shortly before tech’s fast and furious incursion into the nuclear energy space and thus weren’t part of the industry’s 2023–24 legislative lobbying efforts. Public support and lobbying for the two bills came from a handful of relatively small pro-nuclear advocacy groups, as well as a handful of labor groups, and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear trade association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too soon to tell how serious these tech firms are about promoting nuclear energy to power their electricity needs,” Squassoni said. “It could be a fad — it could be that once they get a real whiff of the costs and time it takes to build new plants, they may back off a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers who spoke to CalMatters said they aren’t against tech companies joining in on broader policy debates around California’s energy grid. Hoover said tech’s nascent nuclear interest may “allow for new conversations to happen,” while Wiener characterized the industry’s involvement as a “positive thing,” so long as companies participate in expanded clean energy initiatives that aren’t exclusively nuclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern, for his part, posited that tech’s interest “certainly doesn’t hurt the zeitgeist around nuclear being a less toxic and scary thing.” He added: “There’s some other incredible tech that, in a lot of cases, beats nuclear from a cost perspective. But it doesn’t quite make sense to me anymore that we don’t let nuclear compete in that contest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California officials are looking for another school to help execute its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020406/journalists-union-california-should-renegotiate-states-newsroom-funding-deal-google\">controversial\u003c/a> deal with Google to fund journalism in the state after the University of California, Berkeley, announced it would not host the partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal, reached last summer, came after Google and Meta lobbied against legislation, modeled after agreements in\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-24/california-is-trying-to-pressure-big-tech-to-pay-for-news-what-can-we-learn-from-australia-and-canada\"> Australia and Canada\u003c/a>, that would have mandated that digital platforms pay publishers for using their content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom, promises to send $180 million to California journalism programs over five years, beginning in 2025. Of that money, $125 million was earmarked for a proposed News Transformation Fund to be housed at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, a spokesperson for Wicks confirmed, “The journalism school did write a letter indicating that UC Berkeley cannot serve as a passthrough for funds from Google and the state. However, the letter does express an interest in other potential ways for us to work together, and there have been continuing conversations with members of the journalism school in recent months,” Erin Ivie wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the letter sent to Wicks’ office in mid-October, school officials wrote they had concerns about the fact the school would not have the power to determine how money would be allocated to newsrooms. The agreement would leave decisions up to a seven-member board that has yet to be named.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12020406 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS26525_GettyImages-486234008-1020x681.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We remain actively in conversation with Assemblymember Wicks about how our school can be helpful and about any and all efforts that can support California newsrooms,” Acting Dean Elena Conis told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office wrote to KQED, “The Governor agreed to allocate $30 million as part of the proposed budget for this program, and we have done that,” in his 2025 budget proposal, released last week. The final budget is expected to be approved this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the University of Southern California — which previously indicated it was approached by state negotiators about housing the fund — told KQED that no final decision had been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were contacted about the proposal last fall. We are learning more, and no commitment has been made,” the USC spokesperson wrote in an email on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the Media Guild of the West \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020406/journalists-union-california-should-renegotiate-states-newsroom-funding-deal-google\">called for an overhaul\u003c/a> of the agreement. Union President Matt Pearce wrote that the “meager” contributions of the deal will not be enough to “correct” the market and stimulate job growth across California’s collapsing news sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to repeated requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California officials are looking for another school to help execute its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020406/journalists-union-california-should-renegotiate-states-newsroom-funding-deal-google\">controversial\u003c/a> deal with Google to fund journalism in the state after the University of California, Berkeley, announced it would not host the partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal, reached last summer, came after Google and Meta lobbied against legislation, modeled after agreements in\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-24/california-is-trying-to-pressure-big-tech-to-pay-for-news-what-can-we-learn-from-australia-and-canada\"> Australia and Canada\u003c/a>, that would have mandated that digital platforms pay publishers for using their content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom, promises to send $180 million to California journalism programs over five years, beginning in 2025. Of that money, $125 million was earmarked for a proposed News Transformation Fund to be housed at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, a spokesperson for Wicks confirmed, “The journalism school did write a letter indicating that UC Berkeley cannot serve as a passthrough for funds from Google and the state. However, the letter does express an interest in other potential ways for us to work together, and there have been continuing conversations with members of the journalism school in recent months,” Erin Ivie wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the letter sent to Wicks’ office in mid-October, school officials wrote they had concerns about the fact the school would not have the power to determine how money would be allocated to newsrooms. The agreement would leave decisions up to a seven-member board that has yet to be named.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We remain actively in conversation with Assemblymember Wicks about how our school can be helpful and about any and all efforts that can support California newsrooms,” Acting Dean Elena Conis told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office wrote to KQED, “The Governor agreed to allocate $30 million as part of the proposed budget for this program, and we have done that,” in his 2025 budget proposal, released last week. The final budget is expected to be approved this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the University of Southern California — which previously indicated it was approached by state negotiators about housing the fund — told KQED that no final decision had been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were contacted about the proposal last fall. We are learning more, and no commitment has been made,” the USC spokesperson wrote in an email on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the Media Guild of the West \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020406/journalists-union-california-should-renegotiate-states-newsroom-funding-deal-google\">called for an overhaul\u003c/a> of the agreement. Union President Matt Pearce wrote that the “meager” contributions of the deal will not be enough to “correct” the market and stimulate job growth across California’s collapsing news sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to repeated requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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},
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"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
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