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California lawmakers are trying to regulate AI before it's too late. Here's how
For four years, Jacob Hilton worked for one of the most influential startups in the Bay Area — OpenAI. His research helped test and improve the truthfulness of AI models such as ChatGPT. He believes artificial intelligence can benefit society, but he also recognizes the serious risks if the technology is left unchecked.
Hilton was among 13 current and former OpenAI and Google employees who this month signed an open letter that called for more whistleblower protections, citing broad confidentiality agreements as problematic.
“The basic situation is that employees, the people closest to the technology, they’re also the ones with the most to lose from being retaliated against for speaking up,” says Hilton, 33, now a researcher at the nonprofit Alignment Research Center, who lives in Berkeley.
California legislators are rushing to address such concerns through roughly 50 AI-related bills, many of which aim to place safeguards around the rapidly evolving technology, which lawmakers say could cause societal harm.
However, groups representing large tech companies argue that the proposed legislation could stifle innovation and creativity, causing California to lose its competitive edgeand dramatically change how AI is developed in the state.
The effects of artificial intelligence on employment, society and culture are wide reaching, and that’s reflected in the number of bills circulating the Legislature . They cover a range of AI-related fears, including job replacement, data security and racial discrimination.
One bill, co-sponsored by the Teamsters, aims to mandate human oversight on driver-less heavy-duty trucks. A bill backed by the Service Employees International Union attempts to ban the automation or replacement of jobs by AI systems at call centers that provide public benefit services, such as Medi-Cal. Another bill, written by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), would require companies developing large AI models to do safety testing.
The plethora of bills come after politicians were criticized for not cracking down hard enough on social media companies until it was too late. During the Biden administration, federal and state Democrats have become more aggressive in going after big tech firms.
“We’ve seen with other technologies that we don’t do anything until well after there’s a big problem,” Wiener said. “Social media had contributed many good things to society … but we know there have been significant downsides to social media, and we did nothing to reduce or to mitigate those harms. And now we’re playing catch-up. I prefer not to play catch-up.”
The push comes as AI tools are quickly progressing. They read bedtime stories to children, sort drive through orders at fast food locations and help make music videos. While some tech enthusiasts enthuse about AI’s potential benefits, others fear job losses and safety issues.
“It caught almost everybody by surprise, including many of the experts, in how rapidly [the tech is] progressing,” said Dan Hendrycks, director of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Center for AI Safety. “If we just delay and don’t do anything for several years, then we may be waiting until it’s too late.”
Wiener’s bill, SB1047, which is backed by the Center for AI Safety, calls for companies building large AI models to conduct safety testing and have the ability to turn off models that they directly control.
The bill’s proponents say it would protect against situations such as AI being used to create biological weapons or shut down the electrical grid, for example. The bill also would require AI companies to implement ways for employees to file anonymous concerns. The state attorney general could sue to enforce safety rules.
“Very powerful technology brings both benefits and risks, and I want to make sure that the benefits of AI profoundly outweigh the risks,” Wiener said.
Opponents of the bill, including TechNet, a trade group that counts tech companies including Meta, Google and OpenAI among its members, say policymakers should move cautiously . Meta and OpenAI did not return a request for comment. Google declined to comment.
“Moving too quickly has its own sort of consequences, potentially stifling and tamping down some of the benefits that can come with this technology,” said Dylan Hoffman, executive director for California and the Southwest for TechNet.
The bill passed the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee on Tuesday and will next go to the Assembly Judiciary Committee and Assembly Appropriations Committee, and if it passes, to the Assembly floor.
Proponents of Wiener’s bill say they’re responding to the public’s wishes. In a poll of 800 potential voters in California commissioned by the Center for AI Safety Action Fund, 86% of participants said it was an important priority for the state to develop AI safety regulations. According to the poll, 77% of participants supported the proposal to subject AI systems to safety testing.
“The status quo right now is that, when it comes to safety and security, we’re relying on voluntary public commitments made by these companies,” said Hilton, the former OpenAI employee. “But part of the problem is that there isn’t a good accountability mechanism.”
Another bill with sweeping implications for workplaces is AB 2930, which seeks to prevent “algorithmic discrimination,” or when automated systems put certain people at a disadvantage based on their race, gender or sexual orientation when it comes to hiring, pay and termination.
“We see example after example in the AI space where outputs are biased,” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda).
The anti-discrimination bill failed in last year’s legislative session, with major opposition from tech companies. Reintroduced this year, the measure initially had backing from high-profile tech companies Workday and Microsoft, although they have wavered in their support, expressing concerns over amendments that would put more responsibility on firms developing AI products to curb bias.
“Usually, you don’t have industries saying, ‘Regulate me’, but various communities don’t trust AI, and what this effort is trying to do is build trust in these AI systems, which I think is really beneficial for industry,” Bauer-Kahan said.
Some labor and data privacy advocates worry that language in the proposed anti-discrimination legislation is too weak. Opponents say it’s too broad.
Chandler Morse, head of public policy at Workday, said the company supports AB 2930 as introduced. “We are currently evaluating our position on the new amendments,” Morse said.
Microsoft declined to comment.
The threat of AI is also a rallying cry for Hollywood unions. The Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists negotiated AI protections for their members during last year’s strikes, but the risks of the tech go beyond the scope of union contracts, said actors guild National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
“We need public policy to catch up and to start putting these norms in place so that there is less of a Wild West kind of environment going on with AI,” Crabtree-Ireland said.
SAG-AFTRA has helped draft three federal bills related to deepfakes (misleading images and videos often involving celebrity likenesses), along with two measures in California, including AB 2602, that would strengthen worker control over use of their digital image. The legislation, if approved, would require that workers be represented by their union or legal counsel for agreements involving AI-generated likenesses to be legally binding.
Tech companies urge caution against overregulation. Todd O’Boyle, of the tech industry group Chamber of Progress, said California AI companies may opt to move elsewhere if government oversight becomes overbearing. It’s important for legislators to “not let fears of speculative harms drive policymaking when we’ve got this transformative, technological innovation that stands to create so much prosperity in its earliest days,” he said.
When regulations are put in place, it’s hard to roll them back, warned Aaron Levie, chief executive of the Redwood City-based cloud computing company Box, which is incorporating AI into its products.
“We need to actually have more powerful models that do even more and are more capable,” Levie said, “and then let’s start to assess the risk incrementally from there.”
But Crabtree-Ireland said tech companies are trying to slow-roll regulation by making the issues seem more complicated than they are and by saying they need to be solved in one comprehensive public policy proposal.
“We reject that completely,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “We don’t think everything about AI has to be solved all at once.”
The Justice Department accuses Visa of unfairly stifling competition in debit cards, claiming the company has maintained a monopoly by imposing or threatening to impose higher fees on merchants that also use other payment networks.
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President Biden’s top antitrust enforcers have promised to sue monopolies and block big mergers — a cornerstone of the administration’s economic agenda to restore competition to the economy.
Below are 15 major cases brought by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission since late 2020 (including cases against Google and Meta initially filed during the Trump administration just before Mr. Biden took office).
The government has won several but not all the cases. And with only a few months remaining for the current administration, the number of suits is climbing, as regulators go after dominant companies in tech, pharmaceuticals, finance and even groceries.
In a lawsuit, the D.O.J. said that more than 60 percent of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions. Government lawyers argued that Visa penalizes its customers when they try to use competing services and that it has built a monopoly around payment processing.
The Justice Department accuses Visa of unfairly stifling competition in debit cards, claiming the company has maintained a monopoly by imposing or threatening to impose higher fees on merchants that also use other payment networks.
Read more › The F.T.C. accused three big prescription drug middlemen, known as pharmacy benefits managers, of artificially raising prices for insulin drugs and making it harder for individuals to obtain cheaper options. The legal action targeted CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and subsidiaries they’ve created to handle drug negotiations. The three companies collectively control 80 percent of prescriptions in the United States.
The F.T.C. files an administrative complaint, which is not yet public, that seeks to prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to drugs that make them more money.
Read more › The F.T.C. sued to block Kroger’s $24.6 billion acquisiton of Albertsons, which, if allowed to proceed, would be the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history. The companies said the merger would bolster their leverage with suppliers; the government contended that it would drive up prices for shoppers and suppress worker wages.
The hearing, a mini-trial, lasts just over three weeks. The judge in the case has yet to issue a decision.
The trial begins in Oregon, where both grocery companies have a significant presence. The case enters the spotlight as high food prices become a critical focus in the presidential race.
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The F.T.C. and eight states, plus the District of Columbia, sue to block Kroger from acquiring rival supermarket chain Albertsons. They say the deal would most likely result in higher prices for groceries and weakened bargaining power for unionized workers.
Read more › The D.O.J. alleged Google harmed competition over the technology used to place advertising on web sites. The department and eight states said Google acquired rivals through anticompetitive mergers and bullied publishers and advertisers into using the company’s ad technology.
The trial is expected to take about a month. The government has asked for a breakup of the company, requiring Google to sell off some assets.
Read more › The Justice Department and a group of eight states accuse Google of abusing a monopoly over the technology that powers online advertising.
Read more › The D.O.J. and a group of states sued Google, saying its role in about 90 percent of all internet searches made it a monopoly. The lawsuit, which was filed in the final days of the Trump administration, alleged Google uses exclusive contracts with phone makers like Apple and other companies to feature Google search on their devices, making it harder for consumers to use rival search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
In a 277-page ruling, a federal judge calls Google a monopolist and says it has acted illegally to maintain that monopoly. A trial to determine remedies is set to begin in 2025.
Read more › The chief executive of Google’s parent company, Sundar Pichai, counters the government’s narrative in testimony that describes Google’s deals with other tech companies as having been in the best interest of consumers.
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As a trial begins, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, becomes the government’s highest-profile witness in the case when he testifies that even his company has found it difficult to compete with Google’s search products.
Read more › The Justice Department accuses Google of maintaining its monopoly over search and search advertising, crowding out competition through exclusive business contracts.
Read more › An F.T.C. lawsuit sought to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri, a blockbuster fashion tie-up to bring together Coach, Kate Spade, Michael Kors and Versace. The suit was a rare move by the agency to block a fashion deal, given that the industry does not suffer from a lack of competition.
A hearing, which effectively serves as a mini-trial, begins over whether the government should put a halt to the deal while the F.T.C. can mount a case against the merger.
The F.T.C. sues to block a merger of two fashion companies, Tapestry and Capri Holdings, that would bring together brands like Coach, Michael Kors and Kate Spade. The agency says the deal could force millions of consumers to pay more for “accessible luxury” accessories — less expensive goods sold by high-end firms — because the combined company would no longer have the incentive to compete on price.
Read more › An antitrust lawsuit filed by the D.O.J. and several states against RealPage, a real estate software company, said its technology enabled landlords to collude to raise rents across the country. It was the first major civil antitrust lawsuit to centrally feature the role of an algorithm in pricing manipulation, D.O.J. officials said.
In its complaint, the Justice Department accuses RealPage of enabling a price-fixing conspiracy that artificially raised rents for millions of people.
Read more › The D.O.J. accused Apple of using a monopoly in the smartphone market to stifle competition and inflate prices for consumers. In its suit, the department said Apple blocked companies from offering apps that competed with Apple versions, including Messages and Wallet.
Apple files a motion to dismiss the case, saying its business decisions didn’t violate antitrust laws. It has argued that those decisions make the iPhone a better experience.
The Justice Department and 16 states, plus the District of Columbia, file a challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing that the company has used anticompetitive tactics to keep customers reliant on their iPhones.
Read more › Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, stands accused of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry. The D.O.J. said Ticketmaster provided exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, which helped Live Nation shore up its dominance, depriving consumers of better prices and options.
The Justice Department, joined by 29 states and the District of Columbia, accuses Live Nation of leveraging its sprawling empire to dominate the live music industry by locking venues into exclusive ticketing contracts, pressuring artists to use its services and threatening its rivals with financial retribution.
Read more › A merger between JetBlue and Spirit, which would have created the fifth-largest airline in the United States, was blocked by a federal judge after a D.O.J. challenge. Government lawyers argued that smaller, low-cost airlines like Spirit helped reduce fares and that allowing the company to be acquired by JetBlue, which tends to charge higher prices than Spirit, would have hurt consumers.
JetBlue and Spirit announce that they will not seek to overturn a court ruling that blocked their planned $3.8 billion merger.
Read more › In a 109-page ruling siding with the government, the judge in the case says the merger would “likely incentivize JetBlue further to abandon its roots as a maverick, low-cost carrier.”
Read more ›
The Justice Department files a lawsuit seeking to stop JetBlue Airways from buying Spirit Airlines, arguing that the $3.8 billion deal would reduce competition.
Read more › A lawsuit filed by the F.T.C. and 17 states against Amazon accused the retail behemoth of squeezing merchants and favoring its own competing brands and services over third-party sellers. A trial date is set for 2026.
Amazon asks the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that the F.T.C. failed to identify the harm consumers were experiencing. It says the agency confused “common retail practices” with monopolistic behavior.
The F.T.C. and 17 states sue Amazon, contending its online store and merchant services illegally stifle competition. The lawsuit that raises the possibility of altering the company’s structure.
Read more › The F.T.C. sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which, if allowed to proceed, would be the largest consumer tech acquisition since AOL bought Time Warner more than two decades ago. The case follows scrutiny of the deal by regulators in Europe. Microsoft makes the consoles and platforms on which Activision’s games are played, and the merger of two companies that don’t directly compete is known as a vertical merger. Cases against vertical mergers have traditionally been difficult to win.
Microsoft says it has closed its deal with Activision Blizzard, signaling that the tech industry’s giants are still free to use their cash hoards to get even bigger.
Read more › In a 53-page decision, a judge says the F.T.C. has failed to show the merger would result in a substantial reduction in competition that would harm consumers.
Read more › The F.T.C. seeks a preliminary injunction to bar Microsoft from completing the deal before the F.T.C. has the chance to argue the case in its internal court. Microsoft argues a delay would essentially be killing the deal anyway.
Read more › In its suit, the F.T.C. says Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard would harm consumers because Microsoft could use Activision’s blockbuster games like Call of Duty to lure gamers from rivals.
Read more › The Justice Department sought to block a proposed merger between the largest publisher in the United States and a key rival.
In an order, a judge says that the government has demonstrated that the merger might “substantially” harm competition in the market for U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.
Read more › The D.O.J. sued to block UnitedHealth Group’s $13 billion acquisition of health technology company Change Healthcare, arguing that a deal would give UnitedHealth sensitive data that it could wield against its competitors in the insurance business.
After a trial over the summer, a judge says in a 58-page memo that UnitedHealth’s incentives to protect customer data as it grows its businesses outweigh motivations to misuse the information.
In a lawsuit, the Justice Department argues UnitedHealth Group’s deal to acquire Change Healthcare, a health technology company, would give the giant insurer access to sensitive data that it could wield against its competitors.
Read more ›
new video loaded: The U.S. Is Mining for Uranium
September 23, 2024
Miners at Pinyon Plain uranium mine, Arizona.
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new video loaded: Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates for the First Time in Four Years
transcript
transcript
Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates for the First Time in Four Years
Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said that the central bank would take future interest rate cuts “meeting by meeting” after lowering rates by a half percentage point, an unusually large move.
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Today, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to reduce the degree of policy restraint by lowering our policy interest rate by a half percentage point. Our patient approach over the past year has paid dividends. Inflation is now much closer to our objective, and we have gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. We’re going to take it meeting by meeting. As I mentioned, there’s no sense that the committee feels it’s in a rush to do this. We made a good, strong start to this, and that’s really, frankly, a sign of our confidence — confidence that inflation is coming down.
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