“What SB 53, California’s new AI law, does” by tlevin
Update: 2025-09-30
Description
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 53 on September 29. I think it's a pretty great step, though I certainly hope future legislation builds on it.
I wrote up my understanding of what the text actually does; I welcome any corrections (and certainly further analysis for what this all means for AI safety)!
Very short summary
The law requires major AI companies to:
- Publish a frontier AI framework describing how the developer “approaches” assessing and mitigating catastrophic risks, defined as risks of death/serious injury to >50 people or >$1B in damage from a single incident related to CBRN uplift, autonomous crime, or loss of control, and keep the published version of the framework up to date.
- Publish model cards summarizing the assessments of catastrophic risks from the model, the role of third parties in those assessments, and how the frontier AI framework was implemented.
- Report to California's Office of Emergency [...]
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Outline:
(00:32 ) Very short summary
(02:22 ) Longer summary
(02:25 ) What the bill requires of large frontier developers
(07:38 ) Other notes about the bill
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First published:
September 29th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z5wJMvTafuvBgHnEj/what-sb-53-california-s-new-ai-law-does
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