California State Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday launched new amendments to his newest invoice, SB 53, that will require the world’s largest AI corporations to publish security and safety protocols and subject stories when security incidents happen.
If signed into legislation, California could be the primary state to impose significant transparency necessities onto main AI builders, possible together with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.
Senator Wiener’s earlier AI invoice, SB 1047, included comparable necessities for AI mannequin builders to publish security stories. Nevertheless, Silicon Valley fought ferociously in opposition to that invoice, and it was in the end vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. California’s Governor then referred to as for a gaggle of AI leaders — together with the main Stanford researcher co-founder of World Labs Fei Fei Li — to type a coverage group and set objectives for the state’s AI security efforts.
California’s AI coverage group not too long ago revealed their ultimate suggestions, citing a necessity for “necessities on trade to publish details about their programs” in an effort to set up a “sturdy and clear proof setting.” Senator Wiener’s workplace mentioned in a press launch that SB 53’s amendments have been closely influenced by this report.
“The invoice continues to be a piece in progress, and I stay up for working with all stakeholders within the coming weeks to refine this proposal into probably the most scientific and honest legislation it may be,” Senator Wiener mentioned within the launch.
SB 53 goals to strike a steadiness that Governor Newsom claimed SB 1047 failed to realize — ideally, creating significant transparency necessities for the biggest AI builders with out thwarting the fast progress of California’s AI trade.
“These are considerations that my group and others have been speaking about for some time,” mentioned Nathan Calvin, VP of State Affairs for the nonprofit AI security group, Encode, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Having corporations clarify to the general public and authorities what measures they’re taking to handle these dangers looks like a naked minimal, cheap step to take.”
The invoice additionally creates whistleblower protections for workers of AI labs who imagine their firm’s expertise poses a “essential danger” to society — outlined within the invoice as contributing to the demise or harm of greater than 100 folks, or greater than $1 billion in harm.
Moreover, the invoice goals to create CalCompute, a public cloud computing cluster to help startups and researchers creating large-scale AI.
With the brand new amendments, SB 53 is now headed to California State Meeting Committee on Privateness and Shopper Safety for approval. Ought to it move there, the invoice may also must move by way of a number of different legislative our bodies earlier than reaching Governor Newsom’s desk.
On the opposite aspect of the U.S., New York Governor Kathy Hochul is now contemplating the same AI security invoice, the RAISE Act, which might additionally require giant AI builders to publish security and safety stories.
The destiny of state AI legal guidelines just like the RAISE Act and SB 53 have been briefly in jeopardy as federal lawmakers thought of a 10-year AI moratorium on state AI regulation — an try and restrict a “patchwork” of AI legal guidelines that corporations must navigate. Nevertheless, that proposal failed in a 99-1 Senate vote earlier in July.
“Making certain AI is developed safely shouldn’t be controversial — it must be foundational,” mentioned Geoff Ralston, the previous president of Y Combinator, in an announcement to TechCrunch. “Congress must be main, demanding transparency and accountability from the businesses constructing frontier fashions. However with no critical federal motion in sight, states should step up. California’s SB 53 is a considerate, well-structured instance of state management.”
Up so far, lawmakers have did not get AI corporations on board with state-mandated transparency necessities. Anthropic has broadly endorsed the necessity for elevated transparency into AI corporations, and even expressed modest optimism in regards to the suggestions from California’s AI coverage group. However corporations corresponding to OpenAI, Google, and Meta have been extra resistant to those efforts.
Main AI mannequin builders sometimes publish security stories for his or her AI fashions, however they’ve been much less constant in latest months. Google, for instance, determined to not publish a security report for its most superior AI mannequin ever launched, Gemini 2.5 Professional, till months after it was made accessible. OpenAI additionally determined to not publish a security report for its GPT-4.1 mannequin. Later, a third-party research got here out that urged it could be much less aligned than earlier AI fashions.
SB 53 represents a toned-down model of earlier AI security payments, nevertheless it nonetheless may drive AI corporations to publish extra data than they do in the present day. For now, they’ll be watching carefully as Senator Wiener as soon as once more exams these boundaries.
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