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California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

gov.ca.gov

41–50 of 232 posts

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#41

Copied from the end of the page: What the law does: SB 53 establishes new requirements for frontier AI developers creating stronger: Transparency: Requires large frontier developers to publicly publish a framework on its website describing how the company has incorporated national standards, international standards, and industry-consensus best practices into its frontier AI framework. Innovation: Establishes a new co…

it sounds like a nothing burger? Pretty much the only thing tech companies have to do in terms of transparency is create a static web page with some self flattering fluff on it?

I was expecting something more like a mandatory BOM style list of "ingredients", regular audits and public reporting on safety incidents etc etc

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#42
post #20
post #4

What real-world problem does any of this solve? For instance, how does it protect my IP from being vacuumed up and used by LLMs without permission from or payment to me?

Your rent seeking is not a real world problem. I'm sceptical about the bill, I would be much more so if it was just some kind of wealth redistribution to the loudest complainers.

Radio stations get to use anyone’s music but they still need to pay to play that music. Requiring payment to use your product isn’t rent seeking anymore than requiring a hobo to leave your house is.

AI companies trying to leverage their power and lobby governments to stiff paying people and thus increase profits is rent seeking behavior. They aren’t creating wealth by non payment, just trying to enrich themselves.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#43
post #4

What real-world problem does any of this solve? For instance, how does it protect my IP from being vacuumed up and used by LLMs without permission from or payment to me?

My first impression of your post was “it’s not perfect why do it?” - I hope I’m wrong.

Hard to tell on the interwebs so apologies if that wasn’t the intent.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protection for whistleblowers - which might expose nefarious actions

I think protection for whistleblowers both in AI and in general is a good thing, but ... do we really need a special carveout for AI whistleblowers? Do we not already have protections for them, or is it insufficient? And if we don't have them already, why not pass general protections instead of something so hyper-specific? (not directing these questions at you specifically, though if you know I'd certainly love to he…

Could be mainly to send a message. “Remember, no funny business with whistleblowers. We’re watching.”

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#45
post #41

Copied from the end of the page: What the law does: SB 53 establishes new requirements for frontier AI developers creating stronger: Transparency: Requires large frontier developers to publicly publish a framework on its website describing how the company has incorporated national standards, international standards, and industry-consensus best practices into its frontier AI framework. Innovation: Establishes a new co…

it sounds like a nothing burger? Pretty much the only thing tech companies have to do in terms of transparency is create a static web page with some self flattering fluff on it? I was expecting something more like a mandatory BOM style list of "ingredients", regular audits and public reporting on safety incidents etc etc

By putting "ethical" in there it essentially gives the California AG the right to fine companies that provide LLMs capable of expressing controversial viewpoints.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#46

I found this website with the actual bill text along with annotations [0]. The section 22757.12. seems to contain the actual details of what they mean by "transparency". [0] https://sb53.info/

> “Artificial intelligence model” means an engineered or machine-based system that varies in its level of autonomy and that can, for explicit or implicit objectives, infer from the input it receives how to generate outputs that can influence physical or virtual environments.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like this definition covers basically all automation of any kind. Like, a dumb lawnmower responds to the input of the throttle lever and the kill switch and generates an output of a spinning blade which influences the physical environment, my lawn.

> “Catastrophic risk” means a foreseeable and material risk that a large developer’s development, storage, use, or deployment of a foundation model will materially contribute to the death of, or serious injury to, more than 50 people or more than one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) in damage to, or loss of, property arising from a single incident, scheme, or course of conduct involving a dangerous capability.

I had a friend that cut his toe off with a lawnmower. I'm pretty sure more than 50 people a year injure themselves with lawn mowers.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#47
> For purposes of this chapter:

> (a) “Artificial intelligence model” means an engineered or machine-based system that varies in its level of autonomy and that can, for explicit or implicit objectives, infer from the input it receives how to generate outputs that can influence physical or virtual environments.

I was curious how California was going to define AI since it's basically a marketing term as of now. Seems like it's defined as a non-biological system that generates outputs from inputs.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#48
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your rent seeking is not a real world problem. I'm sceptical about the bill, I would be much more so if it was just some kind of wealth redistribution to the loudest complainers.

I’d rather pay real human authors and artists for their creativity than openAI. As it is, I would never pay for an AI written textbook. And yet who will write the textbooks of tomorrow?

News flash: You won't have any idea whether the textbook is AI-authored or not.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protection for whistleblowers - which might expose nefarious actions

I think protection for whistleblowers both in AI and in general is a good thing, but ... do we really need a special carveout for AI whistleblowers? Do we not already have protections for them, or is it insufficient? And if we don't have them already, why not pass general protections instead of something so hyper-specific? (not directing these questions at you specifically, though if you know I'd certainly love to he…

I think the idea is that explicit protections might encourage whistle-blowing. Especially since the domain is nascent enough that it's not clear what you'd blow the whistle on that might be unique to the companies that make foundation models. In many cases, there will be whistleblowers who both disclose what is being fed into models, but also details in aggregate about what users of models can do.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#50
post #4

What real-world problem does any of this solve? For instance, how does it protect my IP from being vacuumed up and used by LLMs without permission from or payment to me?

The problem it solves is providing any sort of baseline framework for lawmakers and the legal system to even discuss AI and its impacts based on actual data instead of feels. That's why so much of it is about requiring tech companies to publish safety plans, transparency reports and incidents, and why the penalty for noncompliance is only $10,000. A comprehensive AI regulatory action is way too premature at this stag…

>and why the penalty for noncompliance is only $10,000.

Think they were off by an order of magnitude for this fine. The PR for reporting anything bad on AI is probably worth more than the fine for non-compliance. 100k would at least start to dent the bumper.

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