‘KILL BILL’ CONTEST ALERT! GUESS WHICH BILLS WON’T SURVIVE, WIN PRIZES — It’s almost that time of year again, when California lawmakers run through hundreds of bills in quick succession and announce which will (and won’t) advance from the Appropriations committees to the floor. Now’s your chance to make predictions and compete against your fellow politicos — and the Playbook authors — to guess which bills won’t survive the dreaded “suspense file.” Those with the most accurate guesses will receive a shout-out in California Playbook and some extra special swag. Remember to leave your name and email with your prediction so we can contact you if you win. THE BUZZ: SCOPE OF INTEREST — The fight over a California bill on artificial intelligence is now spilling well outside the bounds of Sacramento — from Washington to even Canada. It highlights the deep divisions over attempts to rein in a potentially transformative technology as well as the outsized role our Golden State plays. Silicon Valley Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the ranking member on the House Science Committee, took the unusual step of issuing a letter Wednesday voicing how she is “very concerned” about state Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill to require safety assessments for large-scale AI models. Lofgren’s criticism echoes that of VC firms a16z and Y Combinator, which have argued in recent weeks that the bill would undermine AI in its infancy and kneecap what could be a huge boon to the state economy. "I firmly support AI governance to guard against demonstrable risks to public safety," Lofgren wrote. "Unfortunately, this bill would fall short of these goals — creating unnecessary risks for both the public and California's economy." Senate Bill 1047 has irritated the tech industry since its inception, but with less than a month left in the legislative session, both opponents and supporters are drawing on big names to sway public opinion in their direction. The bill awaits final approval in the Assembly Appropriations Committee before it can get a vote on the floor and land on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Critics appear to fear that Wiener’s bill could set the tone for AI regulations across the country. Tech players like Marc Andreessen and Garry Tan have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism on social media, driving opposition among their hundreds of thousands of followers as the bill made its way through the Legislature. Just this week, renowned computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, often dubbed the “godmother of AI,” warned it will have significant unintended consequences. On the other side of the issue, proponents are relying on public opinion polls and warnings from tech veterans to counter the opponents’ powerful — and very wealthy — messengers. Wiener has publicly gone back and forth with his detractors, at times accusing them of spreading inaccurate and “highly inflammatory distortions” about his bill. (A16z later argued that it was actually Wiener who was making incorrect claims.) "It's a very 'David and Goliath' battle,” said Teri Olle, director of Economic Security California Action, a bill co-sponsor. “The public is begging policymakers to make decisions and the money interests are trying to maintain the status quo, which is a very unregulated, libertarian sort of status quo." On Wednesday, a group of renowned professors, including AI “godfathers” Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton of Canada, argued on behalf of the bill in TIME Magazine, dismissing concerns about hampering innovation and describing SB 1047 as “the bare minimum for effective regulation of this technology.” So far, legislators in the Democrat-dominated state Capitol have given broad approval to Wiener’s proposal, passing it out of every committee with wide majorities in support. While it's still awaiting votes in the Assembly, the looming question now is whether the governor will support it. Newsom — who likes to avoid weighing in on legislation early if he can help it — has walked a fine line on the issue of regulating AI. At times he has voiced support for curbing certain aspects of the technology, including deepfake political videos, while also warning against the perils of over-regulation. He could step in to shape the legislation with amendments before it hits his desk, but if that’s the case, he’s running out of time to do so. GOOD MORNING. Happy Thursday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? At the San Diego Zoo for the debut of two giant pandas.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment