2 weeks Ago By Sacramento Bee
California is about to find out whether Governor Gavin Newsom is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state’s influential Big Tech companies, or just a partial one. It is a near certainty that the Democrat-controlled California Legislature will send to Newsom a bill that would make the state a regulator of artificial intelligence development. Placing California in a high-profile leadership position is frequently an opportunity that Newsom has seized without hesitation.
But the governor has yet to cross swords with this powerful business sector and has done its bidding so far. The future of artificial intelligence in California is too big an issue to fly under the radar—Newsom’s about to reveal the depth of his tech allegiances. Opinion The Big Tech litmus test is by Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who is accustomed to advancing some heavyweight legislation that rankles one influential stakeholder or another.
SB 1047, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, is a big deal. It would give the state new powers in regulating these powerful computer models that can perform tasks that only humans could once do and create life-like images that are purely fake. The stunning emergence of this technology, combined with its extraordinary power and potential, motivated Wiener to advance a bill that would place the state in a new regulatory role to ensure that any such programming used in this state includes certain protocols and safeguards to prevent this technology from being used in catastrophic and harmful ways.
SB 1047 would empower the California Attorney General and a new Board of Frontier Models with new oversight and enforcement authorities. There are reasons to wonder whether the state can play a role in ensuring that artificial intelligence is only used for positive purposes. Some influential Democrats in Congress, such as San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi, want California to stay out of this.
Last year, Newsom signed a Wiener bill to report their global emissions (tech companies Google and Apple were in support). Yet overall, Newsom seems more comfortable taking on the state’s traditional economic players rather than the emerging ones. The governor has forced fast food companies to pay higher wages, has sued “Big Oil” and has criticized Pacific Gas & Electric for its maintenance in fire country.
Big Tech, so far, has largely gotten a pass. The most recent example is when Newsom of Google and social media giants in killing legislation that would have forced them to share journalism-related revenues with the media outlets that created the contents. His apparent desire to avoid this legislation resulted in a between tech and media interests that fell of the legislation’s objectives.
Newsom sided with a court-declared monopoly in Google that the Biden Administration may move to break up in further court proceedings. The governor is a certified subsidiary of their interests. Will he side with the artificial intelligence developers and complete his allegiance to Big Tech? If Las Vegas had betting odds on legislation, SB 1047 would be a long shot to get past this governor.
If he cozies up to monopolies like Google, he’ll have Big Tech on his side for some future White House run that likely will never happen..
