This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a big package of A.I. and social media bills into law — including the first state law in the United States to regulate A.I. companions. We talk through what stood out to us in the package and whether these protections will work. Then, the subpoena that has the whole tech world talking. Nathan Calvin, general counsel at Encode, an A.I. safety advocacy group that has been critical of OpenAI, talks with us about why he thinks the company is investigating him. And finally, grab your opera glasses. It’s time for the first edition of The Hard Fork Review of Slop.
Guests:
Nathan Calvin, vice president of state affairs and general counsel at Encode
Additional Reading:
California Regulates A.I. Companions
OpenAI Thinks Its Critics Are Funded by Billionaires. Now It’s Going After Them.
We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Nathan Labenz discusses the latest developments in California's AI bill SB 1047 with experts Nathan Calvin, Dean W. Ball, and Steve Newman. In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, we explore the updated version of the bill, its implications for frontier AI companies, and the debate surrounding its potential impact. Join us for an insightful analysis of this crucial legislation and its role in shaping AI governance.
Apply to join over 400 founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://hmplogxqz0y.typeform.com/to/JCkphVqj
RECOMMENDED PODCAST:
🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765665937
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast
SPONSORS:
Building an enterprise-ready SaaS app? WorkOS has got you covered with easy-to-integrate APIs for SAML, SCIM, and more. Join top startups like Vercel, Perplexity, Jasper & Webflow in powering your app with WorkOS. Enjoy a free tier for up to 1M users! Start now at https://bit.ly/WorkOS-Turpentine-Network
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds; offers one consistent price, and nobody does data better than Oracle. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/cognitive
The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://bit.ly/BraveTCR
Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/
Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) About the Show
(00:00:22) Sponsor: WorkOS
(00:01:22) About the Episode
(00:07:03) Introduction and Recap of SB 1047
(00:13:40) Key Changes and Current Status of SB 1047
(00:19:51) Sponsors: Oracle | Brave
(00:21:55) Dean's Perspective on SB 1047
(00:33:30) Sponsors: Omneky | Squad
(00:35:16) Steve's AI Sensemaking Project
(00:39:03) Differing Views on AI Regulation Necessity
(00:46:34) Nathan's Case for SB 1047
(00:55:07) Dean's Response and Liability Concerns
(01:10:48) Potential Scenarios and Impacts of SB 1047
(01:29:29) Final Thoughts and Predictions on SB 1047
(01:38:16) Closing Remarks on AI Policy Challenges
(01:39:51) Outro
Dive into the nuanced debate over California's SB 1047 AI legislation with Nathan Calvin, Dean Ball, and Steve Newman. Our expert panel discussion explores the bill's intent, dispels misconceptions, and debates its potential impact on technology and regulation. Learn about AI's tail risks, the role of government, and hear suggestions for improving the legislation. Share your thoughts and join the conversation around shaping a positive AI future.
You can reach out and share your thoughts by using the contact form here : https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/contact/
RECOMMENDED PODCAST:
The AI Daily Brief If you’re looking for an edge to stay up to date on everything AI, subscribe to Nathaniel Whittemore's AI Daily Brief which delivers tight episodes covering all things AI from legislation to new technologies to the philosophical debates around generalized intelligence.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7gKwwMLFLc6RmjmRpbMtEO
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-daily-brief-formerly-the-ai-breakdown/id1680633614
SPONSORS:
The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://bit.ly/BraveTCR
Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/
Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention "Turpentine" to skip the waitlist.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:05:45) Opinions
(00:11:57) The Bill
(00:17:05) Elevated discussion
(00:18:51) Sponsors: Brave | Omneky
(00:20:18) AI Doctor
(00:22:55) Centralized Regulator
(00:26:29) SB 1047
(00:27:47) Critical infrastructure
(00:31:51) Should we regulate?
(00:39:00) Sponsors: Squad
(00:40:28) Safety standards for training
(00:46:09) What is 10^26 flops?
(00:52:10) Regulating general purpose technology
(00:53:42) AI regulation
(00:58:31) Societal adaptation
(01:01:18) AI safety
(01:04:20) AI regulations
(01:07:19) The current state of the industry
(01:10:08) What industry wants changed
(01:25:42) Safety is hard to legislate
(01:33:06) How to decide the trajectory of AI?
(01:45:52) Testing, Transparency, Whistleblower Provision
(01:55:17) Closing thoughts