Under SB 1047, AI technologies would have to go through strict safety checks before they are made public. California State Senator Scott Wiener has been very critical of OpenAI for its opposition to SB 1047. Wiener first brought up the bill earlier this year. He stressed how important it was to have reasonable control over AI to protect both national security and general safety.
OpeningAI, the company that made the AI model ChatGPT, is very worried about the plan. In a message to Wiener and California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer of OpenAI, said that SB 1047 could slow down innovation and cost California its top tech workers. California is known as a leader in the field. Kwon said the AI business is still new and that rules made by each state might slow its growth. He said that AI should not be regulated by a bunch of different state laws, but by the central government.
Wiener told OpenAI, on the other hand, that their fears were “tired” and not based in fact. He said that OpenAI’s message didn’t talk about any specific parts of the bill. This makes it seem like the company is against SB 1047 more because it doesn’t like rules in general than because it has a problem with it. “The claim that companies will leave California because of this bill is baseless, especially since SB 1047 applies to all AI companies doing business in the state, not just those headquartered here,” Wiener said.
Under SB 1047, AI companies would have to make sure their models are safe and free of any risks before putting them on the market. People will also be able to turn off very dangerous AI models with this plan. While Wiener agreed that these steps are fair, they are also important to keep strong AI systems from making threats that we can’t see coming. He also said that OpenAI had said before that it would do these kinds of safety checks, which made its opposition to the bill seem odd.
Wiener didn’t like that OpenAI wanted the government to control it either. He also said that Congress hasn’t done anything about AI safety yet. Wiener said that the current situation is like California’s public records law, which other states have copied even though there isn’t a federal law like it.
OpenAI said in July that it backed several Senate bills that would make AI safer and easier for people to use. But Wiener’s response to OpenAI’s opposition to SB 1047 shows how tense things are between politicians and tech leaders as they try to figure out how to control new technologies. The bill is almost ready for the California Assembly to vote on it. What happens there might have a big impact on how AI is regulated in California and other places in the future.
