In summary
California lawmakers have created new restrictions on student cellphones and deepfakes and face a rapidly expanding AI sector.
Over the past year, California technology has become so ubiquitous and important that its impact has finally become a central concern of the California government.
Part of this impact has been positive, as a unexpected increase in tax revenue it likely came from one or more profit-generating, capital-intensive Golden State tech companies like AI chip maker Nvidia.
But lawmakers were more concerned with the downsides than the upsides.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law bills banning deepfake campaign ads, deepfake content on major online platforms, and the disclosure of artificial intelligence content in advertising.
The governor too signed a bill requiring California schools limit or prohibit cell phone use by students, codifying statewide a practice that has become increasingly common at the district level as educators seek to refocus students. Schools in Los Angeles and San Diego took a more critical look at their use of artificial intelligence after unfortunate surprises involving chatbots and scoring software.
The state bureaucracy has moved to update existing law enforcement to account for AI. California The Department of Civil Rights decided to restrict how employers use technology to screen job applicants while the Government Operations Agency establish rules about how state departments themselves use it.
There were limits to regulatory push: the governor vetoed a bill to encourage companies to test large AI models for their potential to aid in mass attacks, the reasoning that the greatest threat overregulated an innovative industry. State agencies, for their part, had difficulty enforcing a law designed to help app workers.
outlook 2025
In 2025, California lawmakers must decide whether to accelerate their regulation of technology under Donald Trump’s second presidential term; Trump has promised to repeal the modest AI safeguards installed by the Biden administration and could use the technology to facilitate mass deportations. That could include another crack in major AI restrictions, given that the governor has promised to tackle the problem again after his veto of the testing bill.