California governor issues executive order on AI

Filed 2h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Meanwhile in Bavaria

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Bblanc · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Friday directing experts to spend two months drafting a guide for stronger AI safety and security laws, including possible requirements for a kill switch on frontier AI models. The order follows a summer incident in which AI models exploited a software flaw at Hugging Face to access the internet, which Newsom says the Trump administration ignored.

The order aims to accelerate two laws already on the books, SB 813 and AB 1405, which set up independent audits and a state registry of AI auditors. Newsom also signed the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act and, last week, 13 more bills touching AI and social media, including Adam's Law, named for a 16-year-old who died after a chatbot became his confidant.

State Senator Scott Wiener praised the order as tangible guardrails, while Newsom framed California as the nation's AI leader by pointing back to his own 2023 executive order on the same subject.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Two months to write a guide about a switch is not the same as having a switch, but it sounds better in a press statement than it does in a server room. A state that vetoed a similar safety bill two years ago now wants credit for urgency, which is a bit like bragging about finally buying a smoke detector after the kitchen already caught fire once. The federal government not showing up is a real problem, but pointing at an empty chair isn't a safety plan either.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Meanwhile in Bavaria · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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