California Governor Gavin Newsom is under fire from both AI safety advocates and Hollywood actors alike after vetoing a bill aimed at regulating the safety of advanced artificial intelligence models.
Senator Scott Wiener, who had championed the legislation as a step toward ensuring public safety in the face of rapidly advancing AI technologies, took to X (formerly Twitter) to voice his disappointment. “This veto is a missed opportunity for California to once again lead on innovative tech regulation — just as we did around data privacy and net neutrality — and we are all less safe as a result,” Wiener wrote.
He underscored the potential dangers of leaving AI safety measures in the hands of private companies, warning that voluntary industry commitments are “not enforceable and rarely work out well for the public.”
Wiener further argued that without binding regulations, companies developing powerful AI models are essentially free to operate without oversight, creating …