California state lawmakers have ramped up efforts to regulate AI in their latest session, putting the Golden State on a collision course with a Republican effort to impose a national ban on such policies. |
As the AI race heats up, President Trump and GOP lawmakers have sought to eliminate regulations they argue could stifle innovation, while states forge ahead with attempts to place guardrails on the technology.
But California sits in a unique position. As the home of Silicon Valley and the center of the AI boom, it could play an outsized role in defining the future of AI regulation — both inside and outside its borders.
“We dominate in artificial intelligence. We have no peers,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Wednesday.
“As a consequence of having so much leadership residing in such a concentrated place, California, we have a sense of responsibility and accountability to lead, so we support risk-taking, but not recklessness,” he added.
The California Legislature passed several AI bills in the session that ended in mid-September.
Most closely watched is S.B. 53, legislation that would require developers of large frontier models to publish frameworks detailing how they assess and mitigate catastrophic risks. It is currently awaiting the governor’s signature.
“Because California is such a large state, any AI regulations that it enacts could serve as a potential de facto national standard,” said Andrew Lokay, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors.
“Companies could decide to simplify compliance by applying California’s rules to their operations beyond the Golden State,” he continued.
Washington, D.C., is taking notice.
Sriram Krishnan, a White House senior policy adviser for AI, argued last week that they “don’t want California to set the rules for AI across the country.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) acknowledged his home state “continues to be the center of breathtaking innovation worldwide” but called into question whether it should be the one to regulate AI.
“The notion that this is the right body to regulate the most powerful technology in human history, whose workings are actually largely beyond the understanding even of the technology’s creators, is a fairly fantastical notion,” he said at a hearing last week.
“I do think the risk that California is going to drive AI policy for the entire country is a very real one, and I think that a national framework that seeks to stop that from happening is needed and appropriate,” Kiley added. |
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