California is at an AI crossroads.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino. Depending who you ask, a bill passed by California lawmakers last week could either save us from imminent AI Doom

or strangle innovation in Silicon Valley. The AI Safety Bill, SB 1047, is one of the first significant attempts to

regulate artificial intelligence in the U.S.

It's supported by some high- voices in tech like Elon Musk.

It would require AI developers to include a kill switch in their models and hold big companies

responsible for any harms their products cause. But critics of the bill, including

former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Open AI, and Meta, say the regulation could stifle growth in Silicon Valley. So today we're taking a

closer look with the help of Chase D. Felici Antonio he's been following the arguments

for the San Francisco Chronicle.

The folks who are supporting this essentially are saying,

look, the big AI companies have been asking for about a year now in some cases longer to be regulated.

They want to see some kind of regulation.

They're essentially saying that they are building really powerful AI programs really powerful

powerful AI models and that they want the government involved they don't

want this to go off the rails have their programs be used for something really bad.

And so I mean that's the fundamental argument here is that there's been a lot of voluntary agreements

with the White House, with federal agencies, but at the same time those aren't really terribly enforceable

and so there's a there's really the sense that everyone has to be on the same page as far as

testing requirements and and what that looks

like.

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