Organisation · government · US

State of California

US state whose AI laws function in practice as national regulation, given the concentration of major AI developers headquartered there.

13 entries · August 2024 – September 2026

California matters to AI policy out of proportion to its status as a single US state, because most large AI developers are headquartered there — meaning its laws function in practice as national regulation. Its 2024 bill SB 1047 would have imposed safety protocols and a shutdown requirement on the largest models, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, arguing it regulated model size rather than real risk. A year later he signed the narrower SB 53, which requires frontier developers above set revenue and compute thresholds to publish safety frameworks and report serious incidents, largely codifying practices the biggest labs had already adopted. The state has also acted through its attorney general, and its moves have unfolded against a parallel federal effort to preempt state AI laws altogether.

Category
Governments & standards bodies
HQ
Sacramento, US

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  • Government & policy 11
  • Culture & impact 2
  • Courts & copyright 2
  • Security & misuse 1
  • Safety & alignment 1

  1. California requires disclosure of AI-generated performers in ads

    SB 1050 covers video and audio ads with AI-generated performers and requires non-compliant ads to be withdrawn; signed the same week as two other AI bills.

    Government & policy

  2. California signs bills setting up an AI-auditor oversight system

    SB 813 and AB 1405 create a registry and independence standards for third-party AI auditors; OpenAI and Anthropic both backed the bills before signing.

    OpenAI, AnthropicGovernment & policy

  3. OpenAI endorses California's SB 1119 on youth AI safety

    Named for Adam Raine, the teenager whose death prompted a wrongful-death suit against OpenAI, the bill would require age checks, independent audits and crisis-referral protocols for companion chatbots.

    OpenAIGovernment & policy

  4. California sends a wave of AI bills to Newsom as legislative session closes

    Real-estate image disclosure, workplace AI notice and medical-AI bias-mitigation bills passed within a day of each other; Newsom has until 30 September to act on each.

    Government & policy

  5. California governor signs executive order on AI and workforce displacement

    The order gives state agencies 180 days to review unemployment-insurance rules and directs new dashboards tracking AI's effect on jobs, without creating enforceable obligations on employers.

    Government & policy · Culture & impact

  6. California AG issues cease-and-desist to xAI over Grok deepfakes

    Attorney General Rob Bonta invoked the state's new civil deepfake-pornography statute and CSAM law, giving xAI five days to confirm it had stopped the conduct.

    xAISecurity & misuse · Courts & copyright

  7. California and Texas frontier/AI-governance laws take effect

    Texas's law bans specific AI uses such as generating CSAM or discriminating against protected classes, rather than regulating frontier models by compute threshold like California's.

    US GovernmentGovernment & policy

  8. California enacts SB 53

    Newsom signed the narrower successor to the bill he had vetoed a year earlier, requiring frontier developers above set revenue and compute thresholds to publish safety frameworks and report incidents.

    Government & policy · Safety & alignment · Courts & copyright

  9. Anthropic endorses California's revised SB 53

    Anthropic argued the bill, which required disclosure rather than technical mandates, would formalise safety-framework practices the largest labs had already adopted voluntarily.

    AnthropicGovernment & policy

  10. OpenAI sends letter urging Newsom to weaken California SB 53

    OpenAI asked that developers complying with federal or EU frameworks be deemed automatically compliant with the state's rules; Newsom signed the bill anyway seven weeks later.

    OpenAIGovernment & policy

  11. OpenAI brings ChatGPT to California State University system

    The deal gave more than 460,000 students and 63,000 faculty and staff across 23 campuses access to ChatGPT Edu, reported as the largest single-organisation rollout of the product.

    OpenAICulture & impact

  12. Newsom vetoes California's SB 1047

    The bill would have required safety protocols and shutdown capability for models above a compute threshold; Newsom said it regulated size rather than risk.

    OpenAI, AnthropicGovernment & policy

  13. California legislature passes SB 1047

    The Assembly passed the bill 48-16 on 28 August and the Senate concurred 30-9 the next day, sending it to Governor Newsom, who vetoed it a month later.

    Government & policy