STATE YIELDS ON AI LAWS

Leaders back down on proposed tech limits to prevent firms from leaving California.

- BY QUEENIE WONG

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM has rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for youths after the tech industry fought the plan.

(JUSTIN SULLIVAN Getty Images)

California’s tech companies, the epicenter of the state’s economy, sent politicians a loud message this year: Back down from restrictive artificial intelligence regulation or they'll leave.

The tactic appeared to have worked, activists said, because some politicians weakened or scrapped guardrails to mitigate AI’s biggest risks.

Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for children after the tech industry fought it. In his veto message, the governor raised concerns about placing broad limits on AI, which has sparked a massive investment spree and created new billionaires overnight around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Assembly Bill 1064 would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors unless the chatbots weren't “foreseeably capable” of certain conduct, including encouraging a child to engage in self-harm. Newsom said he supported the goal but feared it would unintentionally bar minors from using AI tools and learning how to use technology safely.

“We cannot prepare our youth for a future where AI is ubiquitous by preventing their use of these tools altogether,” he wrote in his veto message.

The bill’s veto was a blow to child safety advocates who pushed it through the state Legislature and a win for tech industry groups that fought it. In social media ads, groups such as TechNet urged the public to tell the governor to veto the bill because it would harm innovation and lead to students falling behind in school.

Organizations trying to rein in the world’s largest tech companies as they advance the powerful technology say the tech industry has become more empowered at the national and state levels.