Andreessen and Altman both opposed California's efforts to regulate AI. Altman's company, OpenAI, even subpoenaed political oddball Nathan Calvin. request “all documents relating to SB 53 or its potential impact on OpenAI.” Calvin is an attorney at the artificial intelligence think tank Encode, where he worked on SB 53. He said New Republic that the bill represents “the first time that we've seen any jurisdiction in the United States say very clearly, 'We believe that the catastrophic risk associated with the most advanced artificial intelligence models deserves serious consideration, and we must take positive steps to ensure that companies are on guard against it and that the government is prepared for it.'
Now that the law is in place, OpenAI has asked Governor Newsom to recognize it as compliant with government requirements as a signatory to the European Union's AI code of conduct. Compliance with the EU code is voluntary.
Weiner spent years working on the legislation that became SB 53, first passing a bill known as SB 1047 that would have placed more restrictions on artificial intelligence companies, requiring third-party audits and the shutdown of artificial intelligence models. OpenAI lobbied against SB 1047. Google lobbied against it. Meta lobbied for this. Andreessen Horowitz lobbied against this. Eight members of California's congressional delegation—Lofgren, Eshoo, Hanna, Cardenas, Correa Barrigan, Bera, and Peters—sent a letter to Gavin Newsom asking him to veto 1047, complaining that the bill “tends to address extreme abuse scenarios and hypothetical existential risks, while largely ignoring obvious AI risks such as misinformation, discrimination, deepfakes without consent, environmental impact.” and relocation of jobs.”
