Exclusive: Anthropic weighs in on California AI bill

Leading AI company Anthropic does not support California's AI regulation bill, SB 1047, but is suggesting changes that could lead to a shift, per a letter shared exclusively with Axios Thursday.

State of play: SB 1047 from California State Sen. Scott Wiener passed the California Senate in May and could get a vote in the California Assembly next month.

• The bill, which many startups and tech companies have come out against, would make AI developers legally liable for how others use their models and to make sure the models can't be used in dangerous ways.

What they're saying: "Ensuring the safe development of AI technology is a worthy goal, but the current version of SB 1047 has substantial drawbacks that harm its safety aspects and could blunt America's competitive edge in AI development," an Anthropic spokesperson told Axios.

• "[Our letter proposes] to refocus the bill on frontier AI safety and away from approaches that aren't adaptable enough for a rapidly evolving technology."

What's inside: Anthropic's letter to Buffy Wicks, chair of the California Assembly Appropriations Committee, suggests the bill shift to "outcome-based deterrence" from "pre-harm enforcement," letting AI companies develop and deploy safety protocols and be held liable for any catastrophes they cause.

• Amid a long list of proposed amendments, the company also suggests more narrowly tailoring regulations to focus on frontier AI safety to avoid some duplication of existing federal requirements.

• Anthropic also wants to do away with creating a new state agency to regulate frontier models and give authority to the Government Operations Agency instead.

The bottom line: "We are optimistic that if the proposed amendments are adopted it will catalyze an era of innovation and experimentation in risk reduction practices, where companies have skin in the game and are thus incentivized to adopt the practices most likely to actually prevent catastrophic risks," Anthropic state and local policy lead Hank Dempsey wrote in the letter.