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Nancy Pelosi is not a fan of SB 1047, a California bill aimed at regulating AI in the state.
“The view of many of us in Congress is that SB 1047 is well-intentioned but ill informed,” the California Democrat said in a statement, pointing to objections from her fellow Democratic members of Congress, Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo, and Ro Khanna.
They joined other House members in writing a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom opposing the bill. “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 says.
The bill would require large companies to “perform basic safety testing on massively powerful AI models," says California State Sen. Scott Wiener, the bill's sponsor.
He notes that startups are not covered by the bill and Google and Meta oppose it. ”When technology companies promise to perform safety testing and then balk at oversight of that safety testing, it makes one think hard about how well self-regulation will work out for humanity.
Pelosi, however, says she has consulted with a number of AI experts who think the bill would stifle innovation in the state.
“I refer interested parties to Stanford scholar Fei-Fei Li [who] warned that…SB 1047 would have significant unintended consequences that would stifle innovation and will harm the US AI ecosystem. She has, in various conversations with President Biden, advocated a ‘moonshot mentality’ to spur our continuing AI education, research and partnership,” Pelosi says.
The bill passed the state Senate in May with a vote of 32-1, and has been sent to the Assembly.