Dozens of AI Workers Turn Against Bosses, Sign Letter in Support of Wiener AI Bill (SB 1047)

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sfstandard.com·sfstandard.com/2024/09/09/ai-workers-support-wiener-bill/

Reports on 113 AI workers signing an open letter supporting California's SB 1047 AI safety bill, including employees from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta who publicly contradicted their employers' opposition, highlighting internal industry divisions over AI safety regulation.

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Summary

At least 113 current and former AI company employees signed an open letter supporting California's SB 1047, which would impose liability on developers of large AI models that cause catastrophes without adequate safety measures. Thirty-seven signatories actively contradicted their employers' official opposition, including staff from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. Notable signatories include Geoffrey Hinton, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, and OpenAI whistleblowers.

Key Points

•113 AI workers signed a letter supporting SB 1047, with 37 openly contradicting their employers' official opposition to the bill.
•SB 1047 would establish liability for AI model developers causing catastrophes if they failed to take appropriate safety measures, applying to models costing $100M+ to train.
•The bill passed both California legislative chambers with strong majorities and awaited Governor Newsom's signature or veto by Sept. 30, 2024.
•Signatories warn that powerful AI models may soon pose severe risks including expanded access to biological weapons and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
•The letter challenges critics' claims that SB 1047 lacks expert support, featuring prominent figures like Turing Award winner Geoffrey Hinton and Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah.

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Business Dozens of AI workers turn against bosses, sign letter in support of Wiener AI bill

 Thirty-seven signatories are employees of companies opposing SB 1047, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta.

 At least 113 AI workers have lined up behind a contested AI safety bill authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener. | Source: Philip Pacheco for The Standard By Garrison Lovely Published Sep. 9, 2024 • 6:00am Share Share

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 Close share menu At least 113 current and former employees of leading AI companies have signed an open letter in support of SB 1047, the bitterly contested AI safety bill authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener. The letter (opens in new tab) , published early Monday, revealed that more than three dozen signatories openly contradict their employers’ official stance against the bill.

 SB 1047 (opens in new tab) would establish liability for developers of AI models that cause a catastrophe if the developer didn’t take appropriate safety measures. The legislation would apply only to developers of models that cost at least $100 million to train and do business in California, the world’s fifth-largest economy.

 The bill recently passed both houses of California’s Legislature with strong majorities (opens in new tab) . It now sits with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it. 

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 SB 1047 has exposed rifts in San Francisco and the wider tech world, scrambling the usual political coalitions. Opponents include Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (opens in new tab) , San Francisco Mayor London Breed , AI “godmother” Fei-Fei Li (opens in new tab) , and Trump-supporting venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (opens in new tab) . 

 Proponents include Elon Musk (opens in new tab) (who called (opens in new tab) Wiener a “pedophile-apologist” in July), AI “ godfathers (opens in new tab) ” Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio (opens in new tab) , and the progressive youth advocacy group Encode Justice (opens in new tab) . 

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 A common complaint from critics is that SB 1047 is well-intentioned (opens in new tab) but not informed by experts. One prominent venture capitalist wrote (opens in new tab) in a Financial Times op-ed that “the bill is a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.”

 The employee letter — which was signed by heavy hitters, including Hinton, the former Google Brain researcher and Turing Award winner; Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah; former OpenAI researcher Jan Leike; and OpenAI whistleblowers (opens in new t

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