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AI safety bill passes California Legislature

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AI safety bill passes California Legislature

A controversial bill that would require developers of advanced AI models to adopt safety measures is one step closer to becoming law.

The bill, SB 1047, would require developers of future advanced AI models to create guardrails to prevent the technology from being misused to conduct cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants.

Developers would need to submit their safety plans to the attorney general, who could hold them liable if AI models they directly control were to cause harm or imminent threat to public safety.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), passed the state Assembly on Wednesday, with 41 votes in favor and nine opposed. On Thursday, the measure was approved by the state Senate in a concurrence vote. It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, though it’s unclear whether Newsom will sign or veto the bill.

“Innovation and safety can go hand in hand — and California is leading the way,” Wiener said in a statement.

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A spokesperson for Newsom said the governor will evaluate the bill when it reaches his desk.

Wiener’s bill was fiercely debated in the Bay Area’s tech community. It received support from the Center for AI Safety, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, the L.A. Times editorial board and San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic.

But it was opposed by Democratic congressional leaders as well as prominent AI players including Meta and OpenAI, who raised concerns about whether the legislation would stifle innovation in California.

Democratic congressional leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José), have also opposed the bill and urged Newsom to veto it. They argue the legislation could hurt California’s growing AI industry, home to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and cite efforts Congress is making related to AI.

“There is a real risk that companies will decide to incorporate in other jurisdictions or simply not release models in California,” Khanna, Lofgren and six other Democratic congressional representatives wrote in a letter to Newsom.

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“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 said in a statement.

Wiener and other legislators supporting the bill disagree, contending it would foster innovation while also protecting the public.

“You have to put guardrails,” Assemblymember Devon Mathis (R-Visalia) said before the Assembly’s vote on Wednesday afternoon. “We have to make sure they are going to be responsible players.”

Proponents of SB 1047 say it requires developers to be responsible for the safety of advanced AI models in their control, which could help prevent catastrophic AI events in the future.

“I worry that technology companies will not solve the significant risks associated with AI on their own because they’re locked in their race for market share and profit maximization,” Yoshua Bengio, a professor at Université de Montréal and the founder and scientific director of Mila — Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, said at a media briefing this week. “We simply can’t let them grade their own homework and hope for the best.”

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Backers also say AI should be regulated similar to other industries that pose potential safety risks.

“This is a tough call and will make some people upset, but, all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill,” Musk wrote on X on Monday. “For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk to the public.”

Earlier this month, the bill passed a key state Senate committee after Wiener made significant changes, including removing a perjury penalty and changing the legal standard for developers regarding the safety of their advanced AI models.

San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said he believed the bill’s “benefits likely outweigh its costs” in an Aug. 21 letter to Newsom. The letter did not endorse the bill but shared the company’s viewpoint on the pros and cons.

“We want to be clear … that SB 1047 addresses real and serious concerns with catastrophic risk in AI systems,” Amodei wrote. “AI systems are advancing in capabilities extremely quickly, which offers both great promise for California’s economy and substantial risk.”

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But some tech companies including OpenAI said they opposed the bill even after the changes.

“The broad and significant implications of AI for U.S. competitiveness and national security require that regulation of frontier models be shaped and implemented at the federal level,” OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in an Aug. 21 letter to Wiener. “A federally-driven set of AI policies, rather than a patchwork of state laws, will foster innovation and position the U.S. to lead the development of global standards.”

Wiener said he would welcome a strong federal AI safety law that preempts his bill.

“If past experience is any indication, enacting such a [federal] law will be an uphill fight,” Wiener said in a statement. “In the meantime, California should continue to lead on policies like SB 1047 that foster innovation while also protecting the public.”

SB 1047 is among roughly 50 AI-related bills in the Legislature that address various aspects of the technology’s impact on the public, including jobs, deepfakes and safety.

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Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

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Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.

In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”

“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”

Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.

In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.

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The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.

“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.

Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.

The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.

Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.

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Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.

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Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

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Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.

The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.

The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.

The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.

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It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.

However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.

Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.

Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.

“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.

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In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”

The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.

“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.

Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.

Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.

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Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.

The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.

Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.

A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.

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“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .

Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.

Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.

Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.

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How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.

But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.

While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.

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“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.

It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”

Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.

“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.

The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.

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Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.

Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”

Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.

Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.

“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”

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For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.

“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”

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