Using her influence to take on tech bros

California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom recently convened a meeting that might rank among the top sweat-inducing nightmare scenarios for Silicon Valley's tech bros — a group of the Golden State’s smartest, most powerful women brainstorming ways to regulate artificial intelligence.

- ANITA CHABRIA COLUMNIST

CHRISTINA HOUSE Los Angeles Times FIRST PARTNER Jennifer Siebel Newsom recently convened a group of women brainstorming on AI policy.

Regulation is the last thing this particular California-dominated industry wants, and it’s spent a lot of cash at both the state and federal capitols to avoid it — including funding President Trump's new ballroom.

Regulation by a bunch of ladies, many mothers, with profit a distant second to our kids when it comes to concerns?

I'll let you figure out how popular that is likely be with the Elon Musks, Peter Thiels and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world.

But as Siebel Newsom said, “If a platform reaches a child, it carries a responsibility to protect that child. Period. Our children’s safety can never be second to the bottom line.”

Agreed.

Siebel Newsom's push for California to do more to regulate AI comes at the same time that Trump is threatening to stop states from overseeing the technology and is ramping up a national effort that will open America's coffers to AI moguls for decades to come.

Right now, the U.S. is facing its own nightmare scenario: the most powerful and world-changing technology we have seen in our lifetimes being developed and unleashed under almost no rules or restraints other than those chosen by the men who seek personal benefit from the outcome.

To put it simply, the plan right now seems to be that these tech barons will change the world as they see fit to make money for themselves, and we as taxpayers will pay them to do it.

"When decisions are mainly driven by power and profit instead of care and responsibility, we completely lose our way, and given the current alignment between tech titans and the federal administration, I believe we have lost our way," Siebel Newsom said.