Final summer time, Scott Wiener discovered himself in an uncomfortable place for any California Democrat: overtly quarreling with Nancy Pelosi and garnering assist from Elon Musk.
The explanation for this unusual bedfellows second? SB 1047, a controversial invoice Wiener launched within the state senate that will have required builders of probably the most superior AI fashions to mitigate the danger of “catastrophic hurt” attributable to their creations—and would have created new liabilities for many who failed to take action.
The invoice pitted the AI business towards itself, with OpenAI, Google, and Meta all arguing it might create insurmountable obstacles to innovation and AI luminaries like Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and, ultimately, Musk, speaking up the invoice’s deserves. It additionally created a rift in Wiener’s personal celebration, crusing simply by California’s Democrat-controlled legislature, whereas assembly unprecedented opposition from Pelosi and different California Democrats in Congress. Within the sort of withering critique that has turn into her calling card, Pelosi referred to as the invoice “well-intentioned however sick knowledgeable.”
California governor Gavin Newsom finally vetoed the bill, arguing it targeted an excessive amount of on regulating fashions primarily based on their dimension and never on the context through which they had been deployed. However the dialog it sparked established Wiener as a key participant within the motion to beat Washington’s inaction and create AI guardrails on the state degree. “If any state can do it, it’s California,” Wiener tells Quick Firm.
That Wiener could be the one to steer this motion was by no means a given. Although he represents the California district that features the tech mecca of San Francisco, he’s finest recognized for advancing insurance policies to create extra reasonably priced housing within the state. However Wiener has additionally fought up to now to control the tech sector on points the place Washington wouldn’t. In 2018, after the Trump administration overturned federal internet neutrality protections, Wiener co-wrote the legislation that restored these protections in California.
Because the AI business boomed all through 2023, Wiener started internet hosting a collection of salons with AI leaders to as soon as once more discover the opportunity of doing for AI security what California had already executed for internet neutrality and privateness protections. “Congress has not handed a knowledge privateness legislation. We handed one in California in 2018, and on the time, the business instructed us that we had been going to destroy innovation in California,” Wiener says, noting that the prediction turned out to be unsuitable. “Affordable regulation is completely in keeping with sturdy innovation.”
Whereas SB 1047 finally failed, Wiener says he was inspired by Governor Newsom’s veto message, through which he mentioned he agreed that California “can not afford to attend for a significant disaster to happen earlier than taking motion to guard the general public.” Wiener says he plans to introduce new AI security laws subsequent 12 months. For California, the battle over SB 1047 was only the start.
This story is a part of AI 20, our monthlong collection of profiles spotlighting probably the most fascinating technologists, entrepreneurs, company leaders, and inventive thinkers shaping the world of synthetic intelligence.