Report from New York Times
In Brief – New York followed California and became the second large US state to enact sweeping legislation regulating AI services as Governor Kathy Hochul signed the RAISE Act. The bill establishes a new office within the Department of Financial Services to oversee AI development and regulatory enforcement, requires AI developers with more than $500 million in revenue to disclose their safety protocols, and report serious safety incidents to the state regulator within 72 hours. Although Hochul had expressed some sympathy for tech industry concerns regarding AI regulation, she ultimately agreed to sign the original bill after lawmakers promised to consider her proposed changes next year and then framed the law as complementing California’s AI safety legislation enacted earlier in the year. Supporters in the legislature hailed the measure as the strongest AI safety law in the country, and while many AI industry backers were opposed to the legislation, OpenAI and Anthropic expressed support.
Context – The second Trump Administration, with a far bigger cohort of tech backers than the first, has pushed federal AI policy firmly in the direction of deregulation and investment and pitched the technology as key to competing with China on economic, strategic and national security grounds. The UK and Japan have also moved in the direction of AI support and deregulation, while the EU, home of the AI Act regulatory regime, appears increasingly desperate to promote a local AI industry to join the competition, even proposing to slightly dial back some regulation. But several US states are drifting in the other direction, led by California, leading to industry pushback. Hochul’s reference to California is intended to keep industry’s ire focused on them. The Trump Administration’s executive order trying to block state AI regulation will spur litigation before anything substantive. While most Republican officials are sympathetic to hands off policies, there are some very committed Republican AI skeptics and regulation backers. With razor thin margins between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and very few Democrats opposing regulation, there is little hope that Congress can act.