Governor Kathy Hochul signed the RAISE Act, making New York the second US state to enact major AI safety legislation.
State lawmakers passed the RAISE Act in June, but after pressure from the tech industry, Hotchul suggested changes to reduce the bill. The New York Times reports that Hochul eventually agreed to sign the original bill, while lawmakers agreed to make the changes he requested next year.
The bill would require major AI developers to publish information about their security protocols and report security incidents to the state within 72 hours. It will also create a new office in the Treasury Department to monitor the development of artificial intelligence.
If companies fail to file safety reports or make false statements, they can be fined up to $1 million ($3 million for subsequent violations).
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a similar safety bill in September, which Hochul referenced her announcement.
“This law builds on the framework recently passed in California, creating a single benchmark among the nation’s top tech states as the federal government falls behind by failing to implement common sense regulations that protect the public,” Hochul said.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, one of the bill’s sponsors, was posted“Big Tech thought they could pass our bill. We shut them down and passed the strongest AI security law in the country.”
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Both OpenAI and Anthropic expressed support for the New York bill, while also calling for federal legislation, with Anthropic’s head of external affairs Sarah Heck tells the NYT“The fact that two of the nation’s largest states have now enacted AI transparency legislation signals the critical importance of security and should inspire Congress to build on them.”
Not everyone in the tech industry was so supportive. In fact, a super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman is trying to challenge Congressman Alex Bores, who co-sponsored the bill with Gounardes. (Bores told reporters, “I appreciate how honest you are about this.”)
This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge state AI laws. The order — backed by Trump’s AI czar David Sachs — is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to limit states’ ability to regulate artificial intelligence and will likely be challenged in court.
We also discussed Trump’s executive order and the role Sacks and a16z played in opposing government AI regulation in the latest episode of the Equity podcast.
