California Leads the Way with New Slate of AI Bills
10 hours ago
- California passed numerous AI bills covering employment, healthcare, advertising, chatbots, AI transparency, legal practice, and auditor capacity, keeping the state at the forefront of US AI regulation.
- Employment: SB 947 (No Robo Bosses Act) prohibits sole reliance on automated decision systems for discipline/termination, requires human corroboration, and bans retaliation; AB 1833 restricts emotion detection and neural data collection in workplace surveillance; AB 1331 bans surveillance in workplace bathrooms.
- Healthcare: AB 1979 restricts AI from independently performing clinical functions; SB 503 requires developers to mitigate bias in clinical decision support systems; AB 2575 protects workers' choice to override CDSS; SB 903 bans companion chatbots offering psychotherapy.
- Advertising/Media: SB 1050 requires disclosure for synthetic performers in ads; SB 1111 extends digital replica laws to unauthorized impersonations.
- Chatbots: Signed SB 1119 (Adam's Law) mandates child safety risk assessments and audits for companion chatbots; SB 867 bans AI-powered toys with companion chatbots for 5 years; pending AB 1609 requires customer service chatbots to disclose non-human identity for large businesses.
- AI Transparency Act amendments: SB 1000 removes monthly visitor threshold for disclosure; AB 2713 clarifies platform obligations for provenance data.
- Legal practice: SB 574 prohibits attorneys from delegating practice to generative AI, requires confidentiality safeguards, verification of outputs, and disclosure of AI use in court filings.
- Auditor capacity: Signed SB 813 and AB 1405 build independent verification organizations for AI risk assessment.