SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story

web

astralcodexten.com·astralcodexten.com/p/sb-1047-our-side-of-the-story

Author

Written by Scott Alexander (Astral Codex Ten) in 2024, this piece is a notable pro-SB 1047 perspective from a rationalist/EA-adjacent blogger during the heated California AI regulation debate that ended with Governor Newsom's veto.

Metadata

Importance: 62/100blog postcommentary

Summary

Scott Alexander presents the case in favor of California's SB 1047 AI safety bill from the perspective of supporters, responding to criticisms and explaining the rationale behind the legislation's approach to regulating large AI models. The piece contextualizes the debate around AI governance and the difficulty of passing meaningful safety-oriented legislation.

Key Points

•Defends SB 1047 as a reasonable attempt to impose safety obligations on developers of very large AI models in California.
•Addresses common objections from AI industry critics who argued the bill was overly burdensome or technically misguided.
•Highlights the political dynamics and lobbying pressures that shaped the bill's reception and ultimate fate.
•Argues that imperfect legislation addressing AI risks is better than no legislation, given the stakes involved.
•Reflects on the broader challenge of translating AI safety concerns into workable policy frameworks.

Cited by 1 page

Page	Type	Quality
Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act	Policy	66.0

Cached Content Preview

HTTP 200Fetched Mar 20, 202698 KB

[![Astral Codex Ten](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bGN2!,w_40,h_40,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F430241cb-ade5-4316-b1c9-6e3fe6e63e5e_256x256.png)](https://www.astralcodexten.com/)

# [Astral Codex Ten](https://www.astralcodexten.com/)

SubscribeSign in

# SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story

### ...

Oct 10, 2024

184

453

17

Share

**I.**

My ex-girlfriend has a weird relationship to reality. Her actions ripple out into the world more heavily than other people's. She finds herself at the center of events more often than makes sense. One time someone asked her to explain the whole “AI risk” thing to a State Senator. She hadn’t realized states had senators, but it sounded important, so she gave it a try, figuring out her exact pitch on the car ride to his office.

A few months later, she was informed that the Senator had really taken her words to heart, and he'd been thinking hard about how he could help. This is part of the story behind SB 1047 - specifically, the only part I have any personal connection to. The rest of this post comes from anonymous sources in the pro-1047 community who wanted to tell their side of the story.

(In case you’re just joining us - SB 1047 is a California bill, recently passed by the legislature but vetoed by the governor - which forced AI companies to take some steps to reduce the risk of AI-caused existential catastrophes. See [here](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/asteriskzvi-on-californias-ai-bill) for more on the content of the bill and the arguments for and against; this post will limit itself to the political fight.)

State Senator Scott Wiener, unusually for California politicians, is a thoughtful person with a personality and a willingness to think outside the box. When there’s a really interesting bill that makes people wake up and pay attention, it’s usually one of his. Some of his efforts I can get behind - he’s a big YIMBY champion, and gets credit for the law letting homeowners build ADUs. Others seem crazy to me - like a law which lowered penalties for knowingly exposing someone to HIV (you can read his argument for why he thought this was a good idea [here](https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/bill-modernize-discriminatory-hiv-criminalization-laws-passes-senate))[1](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sb-1047-our-side-of-the-story#footnote-1-149908272). Still, love him or hate him, he feels like a live player in ways that other Californian politicians don't.

The New York Times [says](https://archive.ph/Kskja) he got the idea for the bill after:

> …\[going to\] “A.I. salons” held in San Francisco. Last year, Mr. Wiener attended a series of those salons, where young researchers, entrepreneurs, activists and amateur philosophers discussed the future of artificial intelligence.

...so I guess it wasn’t entirely due to my ex. But the bill owes much of its specifics and support to its three 

... (truncated, 98 KB total)

Resource ID: 01e468e58c1b48eb | Stable ID: vLPGFhianQ