{"id":224277,"date":"2025-09-13T19:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224277\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T19:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:04:08","slug":"california-lawmakers-pass-ai-safety-bill-sb-53-but-newsom-could-still-veto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224277\/","title":{"rendered":"California lawmakers pass AI safety bill SB 53 \u2014 but Newsom could still veto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">California\u2019s state senate <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/09\/13\/california-lawmakers-pass-landmark-bill-that-will-test-gavin-newsom-on-ai-00562956\" target=\"_blank\">gave final approval<\/a> early on Saturday morning to a major AI safety bill setting new transparency requirements on large companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/scott_wiener\/status\/1966909714849296602\">described by its author,<\/a> state senator Scott Wiener, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\" target=\"_blank\">SB 53<\/a> \u201crequires large AI labs to be transparent about their safety protocols, creates whistleblower protections for [employees] at AI labs &amp; creates a public cloud to expand compute access (CalCompute).\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bill now goes to California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto. He has not commented publicly on SB 53, but last year, he <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/09\/29\/gov-newsom-vetoes-californias-controversial-ai-bill-sb-1047\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vetoed a more expansive safety bill<\/a> also authored by Wiener, while <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/09\/29\/here-is-whats-illegal-under-californias-18-and-counting-new-ai-laws\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signing narrower legislation<\/a> targeting issues like deepfakes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the time, Newsom acknowledged the importance of \u201cprotecting the public from real threats posed by this technology,\u201d but criticized Wiener\u2019s previous bill for applying \u201cstringent standards\u201d to large models regardless of whether they were \u201cdeployed in high-risk environments, [involved] critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wiener said the new bill was <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/07\/09\/california-lawmaker-behind-sb-1047-reignites-push-for-mandated-ai-safety-reports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">influenced by recommendations from a policy panel of AI experts<\/a> that Newsom convened after his veto.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/09\/13\/california-lawmakers-pass-landmark-bill-that-will-test-gavin-newsom-on-ai-00562956\" target=\"_blank\">Politico also reports<\/a> that SB 53 was recently amended so that companies developing \u201cfrontier\u201d AI models while bringing in less than $500 million in annual revenue will only need to disclose high level safety details, while companies making more than that will need to provide more detailed reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bill has been opposed by a number of Silicon Valley companies, VC firms, and lobbying groups. In <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.openai.com\/pdf\/oai_ca-safety-letter_8-11-25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a recent letter to Newsom<\/a>, OpenAI did not mention SB 53 specifically but argued that to avoid \u201cduplication and inconsistencies,\u201d companies should be considered compliant with statewide safety rules as long as they meet federal or European standards.<\/p>\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Andreessen Horowitz\u2019s head of AI policy and chief legal officer <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/a16z.com\/the-commerce-clause-in-the-age-of-ai-guardrails-and-opportunities-for-state-legislatures\/\" target=\"_blank\">recently claimed<\/a> that \u201dmany of today\u2019s state AI bills \u2014 like proposals in California and New York \u2014 risk\u201d crossing a line by violating constitutional limits on how states can regulate interstate commerce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">a16z\u2019s co-founders had previously pointed to tech regulation as one of the factors leading them to <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/07\/16\/andreessen-horowitz-co-founders-explain-why-theyre-supporting-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">back Donald Trump\u2019s bid for a second term<\/a>. The Trump administration and its allies subsequently called for <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/06\/30\/congress-might-block-state-ai-laws-for-five-years-heres-what-it-means\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a 10-year ban on state AI regulation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropic, meanwhile, has <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/08\/anthropic-endorses-californias-ai-safety-bill-sb-53\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">come out in favor of SB 53<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have long said we would prefer a federal standard,\u201d said Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jackclarkSF\/status\/1965048896784367847\">in a post<\/a>. \u201cBut in the absence of that this creates a solid blueprint for AI governance that cannot be ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California\u2019s state senate gave final approval early on Saturday morning to a major AI safety bill setting new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":224278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,1854,118774,121599,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-224277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-gavin-newsom","11":"tag-sb-53","12":"tag-scott-wiener","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115198549229610533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}