"Moreover, the latest independent academic research concludes, large language models like ChatGPT cannot learn independently or acquire new skills, meaning they pose no existential threat to humanity." The coalition also took issue with the fact that the bill would hold developers of large AI models responsible for what others do with their products. The bill defined "critical harm" as incidents involving the use of AI technologies to create or use chemical, biological, nuclear, and other weapons of mass destruction, or those causing mass casualties, mass damage, death, bodily injury and other harm. Even Elon Musk, whose own xAI company would have been subjected to SB-1047, came out in support of the bill in a post on X saying Newsom should probably pass the bill given the potential existential risks of runaway AI, which he and others have been flagging for many months. In doing so, Newsom likely disappointed many others — including leading AI researchers, the Center for AI Security (CAIS), and the Screen Actors Guild — who perceived the bill as establishing much-needed safety and privacy guardrails around AI model development and use. Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed SB-1047, a bill that would have imposed what some perceived as overly broad — and unrealistic — restrictions on developers of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models. At the core of the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act are stipulations that would have required companies that develop large language models (LLMs) — which can cost more than $100 million to develop — to ensure their technologies enable no critical harm. The bill included a particularly controversial clause that would have required the OpenAIs, Googles, and Metas of the world to implement nuclear-like failsafe capabilities to "enact a full shutdown" of their LLMs in certain circumstances. "While well-intentioned, SB-1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, or involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data," Newsom wrote. Critics viewed the bill as seeking protections against nonrealistic "doomsday" fears, but most stakeholders agree that oversight is needed in the GenAI space. To enable that, SB-1047 would have required covered entities to comply with specific administrative, technical, and physical controls to prevent unauthorized access to their models, misuse of their models, or unsafe modifications to their models by others. In an emailed statement, Melissa Ruzzi, director of artificial intelligence at AppOmni, identified SB-1047 as raising issues that need attention now: "We all know AI is very new and there are challenges in writing laws around it. Newsom's veto announcement contained references to 17 other AI-related bills that he signed over the past month governing the use and deployment of generative AI (GenAI) tools in the state, which is a category that includes chatbots such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and others. California State senators Scott Wiener, Richard Roth, Susan Rubio, and Henry Stern proposed SB-1047 as a measure that would impose some oversight over companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google, which are all pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into developing AI technologies. From a privacy and security perspective, small startups or smaller companies that would have been exempt from this rule can actually present a greater risk of harm due to their relative access to resources to protect, monitor, and disgorge data from their systems, Gilbert notes. "Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. In an open letter, a coalition that included several entities including the Bay Area Council, Chamber of Progress, TechFreedom, and Silicon Valley Leadership Group called the bill fundamentally flawed.
This Cyber News was published on www.darkreading.com. Publication date: Mon, 30 Sep 2024 21:40:22 +0000