(Bloomberg) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom said he is concerned about a potential “chilling effect” on the development of artificial intelligence posed by a bill to regulate the new technology passed by the state legislature.
State lawmakers on Aug. 28 approved SB 1047, a bill that would hold artificial intelligence companies legally liable if they don’t take required safety measures and their technology later causes major harm. Newsom must now sign the legislation into law or veto it.
“We dominate this space, and I don’t want to lose that,” Newsom said Tuesday during an appearance at Salesforce Inc.’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. The governor said he is weighing what risks of AI are demonstrable versus hypothetical.
“The impact of signing wrong bills over the course of a few years could have a profound impact” on the state’s competitiveness, Newsom said.
SB 1047 has drawn opposition from major tech leaders, venture capitalists, and politicians such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who say it could stifle tech innovation in the state. Figures including Elon Musk, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and OpenAI rival Anthropic have voiced support, although Anthropic fell short of a full endorsement.
Newsom said he has multiple AI-related bills waiting for his signature, some of which are “more surgical” than SB 1047. He has signed several bills aimed at cracking down on the use of artificial intelligence that aims to deceive voters in political ads as well as legislation that provides new safeguards for actors and musicians and other entertainers over their digital likeness.
--With assistance from Shirin Ghaffary.
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