California’s Potential A.I. Law Could Have a Huge Impact on Businesses Everywhere

The Five Most Key Takeaways from This Blog Post

• States everywhere across the U.S.A. are working on regulations related to A.I., but few states’ laws are as significant as California’s. That’s because California is the global capital of A.I. development, considering that OpenAI, Google, Apple, et al are all doing business in that state. 
• California has been toying around with passing an A.I. law that would mandate many of the A.I. safety practices pinky-promised by many major tech companies. 
• The law would apply to businesses in California along with non-Californian businesses doing business in California. 
• There has been some support from tech companies for the law, along with some pushback by notable A.I. companies like OpenAI that claim the law would slow down A.I. progress. 
• If it passes, it could indeed slow down A.I. progress for plenty of American companies. But it could also result in plenty of protections for businesses and citizens alike. 


Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

A version of the bill has been either vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom, but the bill could come back in changed form down the line.

However, it has gotten some respectful disagreements from companies such as OpenAI, which wrote an open letter disagreeing with the necessity of the bill. 

That letter essential argues that A.I. companies have pretty much already promised to do pretty much everything that is outlined the bill, which, by some quite questionable logic, therefore makes mandating those promised actions unnecessary. 

Of course, any discerning reader ought to reply to such a claim that, if the company is already following or on the way to following such safety protocols, then what reason is there to object to a law that would mandate what the company is already doing? If, according to such a company, it would make no difference whether or not the law was passed, then what difference would it make to the company that objects to it? 

A.I. Safety Is the Priority of the Bill

It goes by the name of SB 1047, and it would require of A.I. companies practices such as keeping an unredacted report of safety protocols that the Attorney General will have access to. 

It would also require a full shutdown feature to be set in place as well. 

The end game of all this is to address critical harms that A.I. could cause to humanity. Think, for instance, of A.I. that could be used by countries that are not the U.S.A. to design nuclear bombs. 

Or, A.I. that is put to other malicious ends such as discriminating against loan applicants. 

There has been some hand-wringing by tech companies in Silicon Valley over the prospects of this bill, which increases the state government’s ability to appraise the safety efforts of tech companies in creating A.I. systems.

One imagines that bad marks from the Attorney General could hamper a tech company in a neck-and-neck race to create the best A.I. in the market. 

Plus, of course, some companies reject the open-source approach to A.I. development and so bristle at having to share potentially significant trade secrets with government entities. 

Perks for Business Owners

The less likely that tech companies are to create A.I. with the potential for critical harm, the better off any (ethical) business will be. 

With less reason to worry about things like consistent A.I. discrimination (which, mind you, is impossible to fully eradicate), businesses have better assurance that A.I. is safer than it otherwise would be to use. 

But if you are a business owner, just don’t let your guard down–A.I. always needs oversight. 

The Final Key Takeaway

No matter where your business is located or does business in, the fact of the matter is that California’s regulations on A.I. are perhaps the most consequential A.I.-related state regulations in the world because of Silicon Valley, where the tech companies are creating A.I. products that will be used globally. 

Other Great GO AI Blog Posts

GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole. 

On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles: 

• For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
• IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
• Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
• How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners? 
• The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)

In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.