> Add in the narrow exceptions like child porn and true threats, and that's it.
You're contradicting yourself. On the one hand you're saying that governments shouldn't have the power to define "safety", but you're in favor of having protections against "true threats".
How do you define "true threats"? Whatever definition you may have, surely something like it can be codified into law. The questions then are: how loose or strict the law should be, and how well it is defined in technical terms. Considering governments and legislators are shockingly tech illiterate, the best the technical community can do is offer assistance.
> The government doesn't get to create new categories of "dangerous speech" just because the technology is new.
This technology isn't just new. It is unlike any technology we've had before, with complex implications for the economy, communication, the labor market, and many other areas of human society. We haven't even begun to understand the ways in which it can be used or abused to harm people, let alone the long-term effects of it.
The idea that governments should stay out of this, and allow corporations to push their products out into the world without any oversight, is dreadful. We know what happens when corporations are given free reign; it never ends well for humanity.
I'm not one to trust governments either, but at the very least, they are (meant to) serve their citizens, and enforce certain safety standards that companies must comply with. We accept this in every other industry, yet you want them to stay out of tech and AI? To hell with that.
Frankly, I'm not sure if this CA regulation is a good thing or not. Any AI law will surely need to be refined over time, as we learn more about the potential uses and harms of this technology. But we definitely need more regulation in the tech industry, not less, and the sooner, the better.