A controversial California bill that would set a new bar for AI regulation in the United States has cruised its way to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, despite heavy opposition from some corners of the tech industry.

The bill passed both houses of California’s legislature with wide margins and now awaits a signature or veto from the governor by the end of the month. If passed, it would mandate that certain large AI models—above a set cost and size threshold—would have to adopt a regimen of safety steps, like building in a killswitch, undertaking annual audits, and other rules subject to a new regulatory board set up by the bill.

Despite the lack of pushback within the state’s legislature, there is plenty of pressure on Newsom to veto the bill. Outside of Big Tech industry opponents, which have included Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Y Combinator, a host of Democratic congresspeople from across the state have voiced opposition, most prominently former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Those who have voiced support for the bill include so-called AI godfathers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, Elon Musk, and—in a cautious, qualified statement in favor—Anthropic. Dozens of current and former employees of big AI labs also signed a letter backing the bill, and a poll from the AI Policy Institute showed widespread voter support.

Opponents of the bill argue that it places undue liability on model developers rather than end users, which they say could hamper open-source innovation in particular. They also argue the text of the bill is too vague and could be interpreted in a manner that’s overly restrictive.

Keep reading here.—PK

SVB’s outlook and analysis of the trends shaping the innovation economy is back with their H2 2024 State of the Markets report.

Explore the factors driving more capital flow to US startups this year than in 26 of the last 30 years, despite US VC investment falling below previous peaks. While many companies are finding it harder to raise, the best are making it happen—led by those capitalizing on the boom in AI.

Discover the dynamics at play as SVB breaks down the uneven recovery and the process of recalibration across venture-backed company operations, fundraising, investments, and exits.

Learn more.

If you see something, say something.

That’s one of the messages that EV charging network provider ChargePoint is hoping to get across to EV drivers with the introduction of a new AI-powered tool that allows users to more seamlessly report issues with charging stations.

Rob Newton, ChargePoint’s senior director of product marketing, told Tech Brew that the new feature is just one way the company is trying to improve one of the charging sector’s most nagging issues: reliability.

“There’s a lot of things we can’t see,” he said. “We could make [charging stations] prohibitively expensive and put a trillion sensors in them and sense everything, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, we do rely on users to help us with that. In doing so, we thought, ‘Why don’t we make this an even stronger offering?’”

That offering is a feature within ChargePoint’s app that uses an image recognition model to diagnose problems. The idea is that this process will encourage users to report issues more frequently, cut down on on-site visits, and speed up the resolution. Ultimately, the goal is to boost uptime, or the percentage of time a station is functional.

Be reliable: Reliability is a key priority for the charging sector, especially against the backdrop of an ongoing EV retreat by some automakers.

A massive study by EV equipment company ChargerHelp found that actual charger uptime is often lower than reported. And although there were signs of progress, a recent JD Power study on the public EV charging experience found that 19% of respondents reported being unable to charge because of issues with charging stations.

Keep reading here.—JG

It’s almost as if that really cool pommel horse performance at the Olympics meant nothing.

On September 10, US News and World Report selected the “best” country—a ranking effort, now in its ninth year, that evaluated 89 nations across more than 70 attributes—and found Switzerland on top.

The analysis, conducted by the media company and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, also revealed differing levels of AI enthusiasm around the globe. Comparing respondents’ feelings to separate AI-readiness data from 2023 suggests an intriguing conclusion: Countries considered more prepared for AI deployments often have less optimism about the technology than their eager, less-ready-for-AI counterparts.

“Countries that are wealthier and more developed are more likely to read our ranking criteria and may also be more likely to see AI integration, both the pros and the cons of it. While poorer, less developed countries may see the pros of AI integration, but maybe have yet to experience the cons,” Elliott Davis Jr., a US News and World Report reporter, told IT Brew.

Keep reading here.—BH

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