California State Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday launched new amendments to his newest invoice, SB 53, that may require the world’s largest AI firms to publish security and safety protocols and challenge experiences when security incidents happen.
If signed into regulation, California could be the primary state to impose significant transparency necessities onto main AI builders, doubtless 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 experiences. Nonetheless, Silicon Valley fought ferociously in opposition to that invoice, and it was finally vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. California’s governor then referred to as for a gaggle of AI leaders — together with the main Stanford researcher and co-founder of World Labs, Fei-Fei Li — to kind a coverage group and set objectives for the state’s AI security efforts.
California’s AI coverage group not too long ago revealed their remaining suggestions, citing a necessity for “necessities on business to publish details about their programs” with a purpose to set up a “strong and clear proof surroundings.” Senator Wiener’s workplace stated 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 look ahead to working with all stakeholders within the coming weeks to refine this proposal into essentially the most scientific and honest regulation it may be,” Senator Wiener stated within the launch.
SB 53 goals to strike a stability 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 business.
“These are issues that my group and others have been speaking about for some time,” stated Nathan Calvin, VP of State Affairs for the nonprofit AI security group, Encode, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Having firms clarify to the general public and authorities what measures they’re taking to deal with these dangers seems like a naked minimal, affordable step to take.”
The invoice additionally creates whistleblower protections for workers of AI labs who consider their firm’s expertise poses a “crucial threat” to society — outlined within the invoice as contributing to the dying or harm of greater than 100 folks, or greater than $1 billion in injury.
Moreover, the invoice goals to create CalCompute, a public cloud computing cluster to assist startups and researchers creating large-scale AI.
In contrast to SB 1047, Senator Wiener’s new invoice doesn’t make AI mannequin builders chargeable for the harms of their AI fashions. SB 53 was additionally designed to not pose a burden on startups and researchers that fine-tune AI fashions from main AI builders, or use open supply fashions.
With the brand new amendments, SB 53 is now headed to the California State Meeting Committee on Privateness and Client Safety for approval. Ought to it go there, the invoice may even have to go by 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 an analogous AI security invoice, the RAISE Act, which might additionally require giant AI builders to publish security and safety experiences.
The destiny of state AI legal guidelines just like the RAISE Act and SB 53 have been briefly in jeopardy as federal lawmakers thought-about a 10-year AI moratorium on state AI regulation — an try to restrict a “patchwork” of AI legal guidelines that firms must navigate. Nonetheless, that proposal failed in a 99-1 Senate vote earlier in July.
“Making certain AI is developed safely shouldn’t be controversial — it ought to be foundational,” stated Geoff Ralston, the previous president of Y Combinator, in a press release to TechCrunch. “Congress ought to 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 didn’t get AI firms on board with state-mandated transparency necessities. Anthropic has broadly endorsed the necessity for elevated transparency into AI firms, and even expressed modest optimism in regards to the suggestions from California’s AI coverage group. However firms equivalent to OpenAI, Google, and Meta have been extra resistant to those efforts.
Main AI mannequin builders sometimes publish security experiences for his or her AI fashions, however they’ve been much less constant in current 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 obtainable. OpenAI additionally determined to not publish a security report for its GPT-4.1 mannequin. Later, a third-party research got here out that prompt it might be much less aligned than earlier AI fashions.
SB 53 represents a toned-down model of earlier AI security payments, however it nonetheless may pressure AI firms to publish extra info than they do right now. For now, they’ll be watching carefully as Senator Wiener as soon as once more assessments these boundaries.
