Scaling Laws: Sen. Scott Wiener on California Senate Bill 53

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

Military, Intelligence, International Law, Constitutional Law, Rule Of Law, Politics, International Relations, News, Government, History, Diplomacy, Terrorism, National Security, Current Events, Law, Foreign Policy

4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

California State Senator Scott Wiener, author of Senate Bill 53—a frontier AI safety bill—signed into law by Governor Newsom earlier this month, joins Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explain the significance of SB 53 in the large debate about how to govern AI.

The trio analyze the lessons that Senator Wiener learned from the battle of SB 1047, a related bill that Newsom vetoed last year, explore SB 53’s key provisions, and forecast what may be coming next in Sacramento and D.C.

Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior editor at Lawfare.
0:10.9	Today we're bringing you something a little different. It's an episode from our new podcast series, Scaling Laws.
0:18.5	Scaling Laws is a creation of lawfare and Texas law. It has a pretty simple
0:23.2	aim, but a huge mission. We cover the most important AI and law policy questions that are top
0:29.6	of mind for everyone from Sam Altman to Senators on the Hill to folks like you. We dive deep into
0:36.0	the weeds of new laws, various proposals, and what the labs are up to
0:40.4	to make sure you're up to date on the rules and regulations, standards, and ideas that are
0:45.8	shaping the future of this pivotal technology.
0:48.6	If that sounds like something you're going to be interested in, and our hunches it is,
0:52.6	you can find scaling laws wherever you
0:54.9	subscribe to podcasts. You can also follow us on X and Blue Sky. Thank you.
1:04.0	When the AI overlords take over, what are you most excited about? It's not crazy. It's just
1:10.0	smart. And just this year in the first six months, there have been something like a thousand laws.
1:14.6	Who's actually building the scaffolding around how it's going to work, how everyday folks are going
1:19.6	to use it?
1:20.6	AI only works if society lets it work.
1:22.6	There are so many questions have to be figured out and...
1:25.6	Nobody came to my bonus class let's enforce the rules
1:28.6	of the road welcome back to scaling laws the podcast brought to you by lawfare and the university
1:36.2	of texas school of law that explores the intersection of ai policy and of course the law i'm kevin
1:41.8	fraser the ai innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law,
1:44.9	and a senior editor at Lawfare, joined by Alan Rosenstein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.