California Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking to rein in AI with a new executive order issued on Friday that will fast-track the state’s efforts to address safety and security risks in the technology.
The move will convene a group of “world-leading experts” to provide the state with a guide within the next two months to reinforce and strengthen its AI safety and security laws. Proposals under consideration include the following:
- Require frontier AI companies to embed a designated independent verification organization onsite in their labs to conduct regular audits and evaluations.
- Require that the AI safety frameworks, transparency reports, and risk assessments that frontier AI companies are required to file under state law are verified pursuant to standards deemed adequate by an independent verification organization.
- Advance the creation of a “kill switch” for frontier models, with the efficacy of the switch verified on an ongoing basis by an independent verification organization.
- Update definitions of critical safety incidents to include loss-of-control incidents such as the Hugging Face attack.
“The federal government’s abject failure to create any form of meaningful AI oversight or accountability should alarm every American, especially when AI CEOs themselves are begging for regulation,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not waiting to act – we’re going to speed up our work on substantial and responsible AI oversight before it’s too late. We’re going to do this thoughtfully but with urgent velocity; the stakes are too high to wait or delay action.”
“While Washington abdicates its responsibility to protect Americans, California is building on the strongest AI regulatory framework in the nation,” he continued. “California has already built a national model, and our policy should be the national baseline.”
More to come…
