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California residents: call your legislators about AI bill SB 1047

tflol 2y ago
here: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 and a helpful definition as you parse this: (f) “Covered model” means an artificial intelligence model that meets either of the following criteria: (1) The artificial intelligence model was trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 10^26 integer or floating-point operations in 2024, or a model that could reasonably be expected to have similar performance on benchmarks commonly used to quantify the performance of state-of-the-art foundation models, as determined by industry best practices and relevant standard setting organizations. (2) The artificial intelligence model has capability below the relevant threshold on a specific benchmark but is of otherwise similar general capability.
dataflow 2y ago
> SB 1047 creates an unaccountable agency that can refer model developers for charges that lead to jailtime (yes, literally) and is coming up for a vote in the California Senate. It's highly unpopular in the AI community, at an estimated 10:1 ratio based on recent public comments. I know nothing about this bill other than what's in this tweet, but oh my gosh, criminal accountability for AI developers?? What a horrifying idea.
- abeppu 2y ago
  I mean, if a model has the potential to be used in ways which might be harmful, shouldn't we criminalize the people actually using it to do bad things (create deepfakes for pretend kidnap and ransom schemes or whatever) rather than the developer that create the model? One could use Photoshop prior to generative models to create misleading content, but we didn't expect the developers at Adobe to face jailtime. Why should the developers of stable diffusion 8 (or whatever passes the 10^26 line in the sand they've drawn)?
  - idontpost 2y ago
    [dead]
  - dataflow 2y ago
    I mean, how about picking a lane? The AI community really doesn't get to take "oh my gosh we're on the brink of unleashing AGI! the human race is under threat!!!" and "chill out, this is just Photoshop" as simultaneous positions to argue from.
    - abeppu 2y ago
      The AI community is not monolithic. I do not think we're close to AGI, and have never claimed that we are. My lane is this: I think we're producing new and powerful tools. Some of those tools can be used as weapons. Some of those tools seem to be footguns. But they're relatively broad tools that can be used for many purposes, and the idea that the toolmakers need special oversight because one day someone might figure out how to get the tool to produce a plan for a chemical weapon (Sec 3 (n)(1)(A)) seems misguided to me. Lots of kinds of tools are powerful. SMT solvers, logic engines, finite element simulators, are all powerful, and it seems about as plausible that a team of smart people with a giant cluster of GPUs could use 10^26 operations to design a weapon with one of these other approaches ... or perhaps they could discover something really valuable! I don't think ML is actually in principle more dangerous than any of these other flexible computational tools, it's just changing the most and getting the most resources right now.
      - dataflow 2y ago
        > My lane is this: I think we're producing new and powerful tools. Some of those tools can be used as weapons. Some of those tools seem to be footguns. But they're relatively broad tools that can be used for many purposes, and the idea that the toolmakers need special oversight because one day someone might figure out how to get the tool to produce a plan for a chemical weapon (Sec 3 (n)(1)(A)) seems misguided to me. You do realize you're undermining your own point here? Photoshop isn't remotely similar to your description here... But also, note that I'm not arguing this is a great bill. Again: I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Maybe it's terrible regardless. I'm just saying that if I take the (terse...) commentary I'm reading about it online at face value, they very much achieve the opposite of "convince the reader this is a terrible idea".
- rhaps0dy 2y ago
  Agreed. Though if you read the bill, the only reason people bring up jail is that there's the requirement to submit a report about the "positive safety determination" under penalty of perjury, which only applies if you knowingly lie in the report. I think that's a lot more reasonable: it also applies if you lie in e.g. your driver's license forms. If you merely fail to submit such a report, you're only liable for civil penalties. (see section 2606, https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384).
harles 2y ago
I really dislike seeing a call to action like this with all context squeezed down to a thread on X. Perhaps the bill is as crazy as the post makes it sound, but the giant claims (e.g. 24 regulators with no accountability that can put you in jail) make me suspect some level of hyperbole. Does anyone have more thorough resources for this? I realize I can go read the bill, but I’m not sure how much I could grok from that.
- idontpost 2y ago
  [dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dumbmrblah 2y ago
Anybody have one of those prefilled forms I can attach my signature to and send to my representative? The twitter links were broken for me.

here: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 and a helpful definition as you parse this: (f) “Covered model” means an artificial intelligence model that meets either of the following criteria: (1) The artificial intelligence model was trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 10^26 integer or floating-point operations in 2024, or a model that could reasonably be expected to have similar performance on benchmarks commonly used to quantify the performance of state-of-the-art foundation models, as determined by industry best practices and relevant standard setting organizations. (2) The artificial intelligence model has capability below the relevant threshold on a specific benchmark but is of otherwise similar general capability.

dataflow 2y ago

> SB 1047 creates an unaccountable agency that can refer model developers for charges that lead to jailtime (yes, literally) and is coming up for a vote in the California Senate. It's highly unpopular in the AI community, at an estimated 10:1 ratio based on recent public comments. I know nothing about this bill other than what's in this tweet, but oh my gosh, criminal accountability for AI developers?? What a horrifying idea.

abeppu 2y ago
I mean, if a model has the potential to be used in ways which might be harmful, shouldn't we criminalize the people actually using it to do bad things (create deepfakes for pretend kidnap and ransom schemes or whatever) rather than the developer that create the model? One could use Photoshop prior to generative models to create misleading content, but we didn't expect the developers at Adobe to face jailtime. Why should the developers of stable diffusion 8 (or whatever passes the 10^26 line in the sand they've drawn)?
- idontpost 2y ago
  [dead]
- dataflow 2y ago
  I mean, how about picking a lane? The AI community really doesn't get to take "oh my gosh we're on the brink of unleashing AGI! the human race is under threat!!!" and "chill out, this is just Photoshop" as simultaneous positions to argue from.
  - abeppu 2y ago
    The AI community is not monolithic. I do not think we're close to AGI, and have never claimed that we are. My lane is this: I think we're producing new and powerful tools. Some of those tools can be used as weapons. Some of those tools seem to be footguns. But they're relatively broad tools that can be used for many purposes, and the idea that the toolmakers need special oversight because one day someone might figure out how to get the tool to produce a plan for a chemical weapon (Sec 3 (n)(1)(A)) seems misguided to me. Lots of kinds of tools are powerful. SMT solvers, logic engines, finite element simulators, are all powerful, and it seems about as plausible that a team of smart people with a giant cluster of GPUs could use 10^26 operations to design a weapon with one of these other approaches ... or perhaps they could discover something really valuable! I don't think ML is actually in principle more dangerous than any of these other flexible computational tools, it's just changing the most and getting the most resources right now.
    - dataflow 2y ago
      > My lane is this: I think we're producing new and powerful tools. Some of those tools can be used as weapons. Some of those tools seem to be footguns. But they're relatively broad tools that can be used for many purposes, and the idea that the toolmakers need special oversight because one day someone might figure out how to get the tool to produce a plan for a chemical weapon (Sec 3 (n)(1)(A)) seems misguided to me. You do realize you're undermining your own point here? Photoshop isn't remotely similar to your description here... But also, note that I'm not arguing this is a great bill. Again: I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Maybe it's terrible regardless. I'm just saying that if I take the (terse...) commentary I'm reading about it online at face value, they very much achieve the opposite of "convince the reader this is a terrible idea".
rhaps0dy 2y ago
Agreed. Though if you read the bill, the only reason people bring up jail is that there's the requirement to submit a report about the "positive safety determination" under penalty of perjury, which only applies if you knowingly lie in the report. I think that's a lot more reasonable: it also applies if you lie in e.g. your driver's license forms. If you merely fail to submit such a report, you're only liable for civil penalties. (see section 2606, https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2919384).

harles 2y ago

I really dislike seeing a call to action like this with all context squeezed down to a thread on X. Perhaps the bill is as crazy as the post makes it sound, but the giant claims (e.g. 24 regulators with no accountability that can put you in jail) make me suspect some level of hyperbole. Does anyone have more thorough resources for this? I realize I can go read the bill, but I’m not sure how much I could grok from that.

idontpost 2y ago
[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dumbmrblah 2y ago

Anybody have one of those prefilled forms I can attach my signature to and send to my representative? The twitter links were broken for me.