With AI industry leaders calling for government intervention and Congress stalled, California is taking the issue into its own hands. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an executive order to "dramatically accelerate" oversight of AI companies and possibly implement an AI "kill switch." Newsom cracking down on California's tech industry is nothing new, but in this case, the stakes extend far beyond state lines.
The executive order convenes a group of "world-leading experts" to recommend ways California could strengthen its AI safety and security laws, giving them a two-month deadline. The group will consider requiring frontier AI companies to host independent auditors in their labs and subject them to third-party mandated safety plans. They will also examine how to advance the creation of a "kill switch" for frontier models, and expand the definition of "critical safety incidents" to include loss-of-control events such as the Hugging Face attack.
