California’s push to regulate artificial intelligence has riven Silicon Valley, as opponents warn the legal framework could undermine competition and the US’s position as the world leader in technology, Financial Times reported.

Having waged a fierce battle to amend or water down the bill as it passed through California’s legislature, executive at companies including OpenAI and Meta are waiting anxiously to see if Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, will sign it into law. He has until September 30 to decide.

California is the heart of the burgeoning AI industry, and with no federal law to regulate the technology across the US — let alone a uniform global standard — the ramifications would extend far beyond the state.

Why does California want to regulate AI?

The rapid development of AI tools that can generate humanlike responses to questions have magnified perceived risks around the technology, ranging from legal disputes such as copyright infringement to misinformation and a proliferation of deepfakes. Some even think it could pose a threat to humanity.

The Verge reported artificial intelligence is moving quickly. It’s now able to mimic humans convincingly enough to fuel massive phone scams or spin up nonconsensual deepfake imagery with celebrities to be used in harassment campaigns. The urgency to regulate this technology has never been more critical — so, that’s what California, home to many of AI’s biggest players, is trying to do with a bill known as SB 1047.

SB 1047, which passed the California State Assembly and Senate in late August, is now on the desk of California Governor Gavin Newsom — who will determine the fate of the bill. While the EU and some other governments have been hammering out AI regulation for years now, SB 1047 would be the strictest framework in the US so far.

CCN reported a California bill that intends to promote the “safe and secure” development of frontier AI models has exposed a major rift in Silicon Valley.

Senior tech executives, prominent investors, and politicians on both sides of the aisle are among the bill’s critics. Meanwhile, supporters of SB-1047 include Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, and, most recently, an alliance of current and former employees of AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI.

Having made its way through the California legislature, only Governor Gavin Newsom’s approval is needed to sign SB-1047 into law. As the deadline for him to decide on his position approaches, Newsom has come under pressure from both sides.

In my opinion, there are going to be people who are all for Governor Newsom signing SB-1047, and people who don’t want the Governor to do that. Californian’s will have to wait and see what the outcome will be. 

All US federal agencies will now be required to have a senior leader overseeing all AI systems they use, as the government wants to ensure that AI use in the public service remains safe, The Verge reported.

According to The Verge, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the new Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance in a briefing with reporters and said that agencies must also establish AI governance boards to coordinate how AI is used within the agency. Agencies will also have to submit an annual report to the OMB listing all AI systems they use, any risks associated with these, and how they plan on mitigating these risks.

“We have directed all federal agencies to designate a chief AI officer with the experience, expertise, and authority to oversee all AI technologies used by that agency, and this is to make sure that AI is used responsibly, understanding that we must have senior leaders across out government, who are specifically tasked with overseeing AI adoption and use,” Harris told reporters.

The chief AI officer does not necessarily have to be a political appointee, though it depends on the federal agency’s structure. Governance boards must be created by the summer.

ArsTechnica reported the White House has announced the “first government-wide policy to mitigate risks of artificial intelligence (AI) and harness its benefits.” To coordinate these efforts, every federal agency must appoint a chief AI officer with “significant expertise in AI.”

Some agencies have already appointed chief AI officers, but any agency that has not must appoint a senior official over the next 60 days. If an official already appointed as a chief AI officer does not have the necessary authority to coordinate AI use in the agency, they must be granted additional authority or else a new chief AI officer must be named.

Ideal candidates, the White House recommended, might include chief information officers, chief data officers, or chief technology officers, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy said. 

As chief AI officers, appointees will serve as senior advisors on AI initiatives, monitoring and inventorying all agency uses of AI. They must conduct risk assessments to consider whether any AI uses are impacting “safety, security, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, democratic values, human rights, equal opportunities, worker well-being, access to critical resources and services, agency trust and credibility, and market competition,” the OMB said.

Engadget reported that Vice President Kamala Harris said, “I believe that all leaders of the government, civil society, and the private sector have a moral, ethical and societal duty to make sure that artificial intelligence is adopted and advanced in a way that protects the public from harm while ensuring everyone is able to enjoy its benefits.”

In my opinion, it sounds like the use of AI within the federal government is going to be something that is very closely looked at. Ideally, the AI officers should be people who really know what they are doing.

The United States, Britain and more than a dozen other countries on Sunday unveiled what a senior U.S. official described as the first detailed international agreement on how to keep artificial intelligence safe from rogue actors, pushing for companies to create AI systems that are “secure by design,” Reuters reported.

In a 20-page document unveiled Sunday, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse.

According to Reuters, the agreement is non-binding and carries mostly general recommendations such as monitoring AI systems for abuse, protecting data from tampering and vetting software suppliers.

Still, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, said it was important that so many countries put their names to the idea that AI systems needed to put safety first.

The Hill reported that the United States, along with 17 other countries, unveiled an international agreement that aims to keep artificial intelligence (AI) systems safe from rogue actors and urges providers to follow “secure by design principles.”

According to The Hill, the 20-page document, jointly published Sunday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the United Kingdom’s National Security Centre, provides a set of guidelines to ensure AI systems are built to “function as intended” without leaking sensitive data to unauthorized users.

Other countries features in the agreement include Australia, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, and Singapore.

Last month, the Biden administration issued a sweeping executive order on AI focused on managing the risks of AI. The order includes new standards of safety, worker protection principles, along with directing federal agencies to accelerate the development of techniques so AI systems can be trained while preserving the privacy of training data.

iPhoneInCanada reported about the guidelines for artificial intelligence systems. The guidelines are divided into four key areas reflecting the stages of the AI system development life cycle. It’s pretty broad without anything specific:

Secure Design: This section focuses on the design stage, covering risk understanding, threat modeling and considerations for system and model design.

Secure Development: Guidelines for the development state include supply chain security, documentation, and management of assets and technical debt.

Secure Deployment: This stage involves protecting infrastructure and models, developing incident management processes, and ensuring responsible release.

Secure Operation and Maintenance: Post-deployment, this section provides guidance on logging and monitoring, update management, and information sharing.

In my opinion, it makes sense for there to be specific guidelines on how AI is used. The guidelines could be used by various countries, and should include protections for users – without leaking sensitive data to other users.