As artificial intelligence (A.I.) continues to introduce widespread change in society and even spur boardroom anxiety, a high-profile effort to regulate A.I. in California has illuminated a rift among Democratic lawmakers with San Francisco ties. State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Bill 1047, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, in February 2024, and he has been confronting blowback ever since from the A.I. industry and now from his party’s most powerful legislator.
The bill would empower the California attorney general to “take legal action in the event the developer of an extremely powerful AI model causes severe harm to Californians or if the developer’s negligence poses an imminent threat to public safety,” Wiener’s office said in a statement. A.I. industry response, including from such big players as Meta as well as small players presumably not covered by the bill, criticized what some feared is a poorly targeted punishment regime that could harm innovation.
Saying that she and many of her congressional colleagues view SB 1047 as “well-intentioned but ill informed,” Pelosi said “While we want California to lead in AI in a way that protects consumers, data, intellectual property and more, SB 1047 is more harmful than helpful in that pursuit.”
Pelosi said she “spelled out the seriousness and priority we in Congress and California have taken. To create a better path, I refer interested parties to Stanford scholar Fei-Fei Li, viewed as California’s top AI academic and researcher and one of the top AI thinkers globally. Widely credited with being the ‘Godmother of AI,’ she warned that California’s Artificial Intelligence bill, SB 1047, would have significant unintended consequences that would stifle innovation and will harm the U.S. AI ecosystem. She has, in various conversations with President Biden, advocated a ‘moonshot mentality’ to spur our continuing AI education, research and partnership.”
“While we want California to lead in AI in a way that protects consumers, data, intellectual property and more, SB 1047 is more harmful than helpful in that pursuit.”
— Rep. Nancy Pelosi
In a lengthy retort, Wiener issued a statement calling the bill a “straight-forward, common-sense, light-touch” approach in line with President Joe Biden’s executive order that attempted to set up a safety-and-responsibility infrastructure for A.I. development. “The bill requires only the largest AI developers to do what each and every one of them has repeatedly committed to do: Perform basic safety testing on massively powerful AI models,” Wiener said. “I’ll repeat myself: Each and every one of the large AI labs has promised to perform the tests that SB 1047 requires them to do — the same safety tests that some are now claiming would somehow harm innovation.”
In addition, eight U.S. representatives from California, including Bay Area members Zoe Lofgren and Ro Khanna, wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom warning that SB 1047 “could have a pernicious impact on U.S. competitiveness and governance in AI, especially in California.” And in a separate letter to Wiener, Rep. Lofgren wrote “SB 1047 seems heavily skewed toward addressing hypothetical existential risks while largely ignoring demonstrable AI risks like misinformation, discrimination, nonconsensual deepfakes, environmental impacts, and workforce displacement. There is little scientific evidence of harm of ‘mass casualties or harmful weapons created’ from advanced models. On the other hand, there is ample evidence of real-world AI risks like discrimination and misinformation which are already a problem in our communities. By focusing on hypothetical risks rather than demonstrable risks, the efficacy of this legislation in addressing real societal harms — including those faced by Californians today — is called into question.”
In her message, Pelosi suggested that “there are many proposals in the California legislature in addition to SB 1047” and, essentially, lawmakers should come up with something better.