California’s State Assembly has passed a groundbreaking AI safety bill, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047), aimed at regulating artificial intelligence practices within the state, as reported by Reuters.
The legislation, one of the first of its kind in the United States, mandates that AI companies adopt stringent safety measures before training advanced AI models. These measures include ensuring the capability to swiftly shut down a model, safeguarding against unsafe modifications after training, and implementing testing procedures to assess the potential for models to cause significant harm.
Authored by Senator Scott Wiener, SB 1047 has been shaped through extensive collaboration with open-source advocates and AI companies like Anthropic. Wiener described the bill as a balanced approach that aligns with commitments already made by large AI labs to test their models for catastrophic safety risks. He emphasized the bill’s calibration to address foreseeable AI dangers and urged for its enactment.
Opposition Raises Concerns Over AI Safety Bill
Despite the bill’s intent to enhance AI safety, it has faced criticism from various stakeholders, including major AI developers OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as political figures such as Zoe Lofgren and Nancy Pelosi, and the California Chamber of Commerce.
Critics argue that SB 1047 places excessive emphasis on catastrophic harms, potentially disadvantaging smaller, open-source AI developers. In response to these concerns, the bill has been amended to substitute potential criminal penalties with civil ones, limit the enforcement powers granted to the state’s attorney general, and modify the criteria for participation in a newly established “Board of Frontier Models.”
The next step for SB 1047 is a vote in the State Senate, which is anticipated to pass. Once approved, the bill will proceed to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until the end of September to decide on its enactment, as The New York Times notes.
Featured Image courtesy of jcomp on Freepik
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