Over 150 parents have urged New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, seeking its approval without any amendments. The letter was sent on Friday to emphasize the importance of establishing regulatory frameworks for large AI developers. The RAISE Act mandates that companies like Meta, OpenAI, Deepseek, and Google create safety plans and adhere to transparency rules regarding the reporting of safety incidents.
The RAISE Act, which successfully passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly in June, is now facing challenges as Governor Hochul proposed a nearly complete rewrite of the legislation, allegedly making it more amenable to tech companies. This change has sparked opposition, as many AI firms, including members of the AI Alliance, have expressed “deep concern” over the legislation in a letter sent to New York lawmakers earlier this year.
ParentsTogether Action and the Tech Oversight Project, which organized the letter to Hochul, highlighted the devastating impact of AI-related issues on families, with some signatories noting that they have “lost children to the harms of AI chatbots and social media.” They described the RAISE Act as containing necessary “minimalist guardrails” that should be enacted into law to protect users.
The legislation aims to regulate large companies investing hundreds of millions in AI development and would require developers to disclose large-scale safety incidents to the attorney general. It also stipulates that companies must publish safety plans and are prohibited from releasing a frontier model if it poses an unreasonable risk of critical harm. This critical harm is defined as resulting in the death or serious injury of over 100 people, or financial damages amounting to $1 billion or more due to risks associated with the creation of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
As the debate continues, the potential implications of the RAISE Act reflect broader concerns about the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. With parents advocating for stricter regulations and tech companies pushing back against such measures, the outcome of this legislative effort may set a significant precedent for AI governance in the United States.
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