Press Release

Senator Wiener Responds to Top Experts’ Interim Report on AI Governance Framework

SACRAMENTO – The Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models released an interim report presenting a framework for the governance of AI models in California. The Working Group was convened by Governor Newsom when he announced his veto of Senator Wiener’s SB 1047. The report will be open to public feedback for the next several weeks, and a finalized version will be released this summer. Senator Wiener issued the following statement in response to the interim report’s release:

“The brilliant research and thoughtful recommendations laid out in this report build on the urgent conversations around AI governance we began in the Legislature last year, providing valuable insight from our brightest minds on how policymakers should be thinking about the future of AI systems. I deeply appreciate the tremendous hard work and thought that the members of the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models have put into this report. 

“AI presents tremendous opportunities to transform our world for the better. At the same time, this report affirms with cutting edge research that the rapid pace of technological advancement in AI means policymakers must act with haste to impose reasonable guardrails to mitigate foreseeable risks, and that California has a vital role to play in the regulation of these systems. The recommendations in this report strike a thoughtful balance between the need for safeguards and the need to support innovation. My office is considering which recommendations could be incorporated into SB 53, and I invite all relevant stakeholders to engage with us in that process.”

Background

The Working Group was convened by Governor Newsom at the end of the last legislative session to assemble evidence and recommendations from our state’s foremost AI researchers and policy minds to help California lawmakers develop workable guardrails for deploying advanced AI systems. The Working Group consists of:

  • Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Co-Director, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
  • Dr. Jennifer Tour Chayes, Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley
  • Tino Cuéllar, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 

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