The lawmakers in California in the United States (US) have greenlit a series of proposals aimed at the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a report by AP. The legislation will help fight the threats emerging from deepfakes and help prevent individual exploitation facilitated by AI.
The California Legislature is set to vote on various regulatory proposals for AI this week as it enters its final week of the session. The bills, whose voting deadline is Saturday, will be forwarded to Governor Gavin Newsom. The governor will have until September 30 to approve or reject them.
Earlier, Governor Newsom raised concerns that excessive regulation of AI could have an adverse impact on the local industry. The proposed pieces of legislation focus on critical threats persisting from AI, including electoral manipulation and deepfakes depicting child sexual abuse.
The bills call for the removal of misleading AI-generated material 120 days before and 160 days after the election day. The legislation target large social media platforms. In addition, two specific bills make it illegal to deploy AI tools for generating media, both images and videos, depicting child sexual abuse.
In the current regulatory landscape, the authorities are not allowed to penalise individuals who are found in possession or distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material if the subjects shown in the media are not proven to be real persons. One proposal calls for AI detection tools to be put in place by social media companies to combat deceptive content.
The bills include provisions mandating the disclosure of data used by developers to train their AI models for transparency, to understand the functioning of these models, and help prevent any threats persisting from them. Moreover, algorithmic discrimination is also a focal point of the proposed legislation in addition to establishing safety protocols. AI-generated clones of workers, including voiceover artists and audiobook readers and translators, will be banned under the legislation, too.
These measures have been incorporated drawing along similar demands as put forth during the Hollywood demonstrations, which were led by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in 2023. The widespread protests against generative AI shut down Hollywood for weeks last year, with writers and performers calling for an action against exploitative practices and replacements facilitated by AI, increasing layoffs, and declining wages.
If the legislation is approved, California could become the first US state to enforce a set of regulations on the use AI.
