Following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature of a new bill, regulations regarding safety standards and civil policies are being implemented for large artificial intelligence (AI) developers.
As a result of the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (TFAIA), starting in 2026, all AI companies will be required to adhere to new standards, and companies earning over $500 million in annual gross revenue will be subject to more requirements.
According to the State of California, new conditions will include publishing a framework detailing how the company follows safety and privacy standards, and is subject to a noncompliance civil policy for health-related risks reported by whistleblowers. The bill also requires companies to report critical safety incidents and calls for establishing a consortium within the Government Operations Agency to ethically advance AI development.
“The conversation right now is about transparency, reputability, and verifiability. I think this bill would gear towards that,” said Sanjay Agrawal, who works in high-performance computing and system design. “I am completely supportive of companies disclosing safety measures. A lot of requirements have come up because this is some of the most complex machinery humans have invented so far.”
Some believe this bill is fundamentally important as AI continues to develop. Others, however, believe it may not be necessary.
“I don’t think these regulations matter too much,” said Melinda Nelson, a sophomore at Carlmont High School. “I feel like the developers can handle it themselves. AI isn’t as dangerous as people say it is.”
The TFAIA, written by Senator Scott Wiener, makes California the first state to sign a bill into effect specifically aimed at regulating AI models at the forefront of the industry.
Looking ahead, this bill may be followed by more AI legislation, which could result in laws regarding AI use in academic settings.
“AI changes the way we teach. We have to really teach students about the idea of a growth mindset and being intrinsically motivated to learn,” said Jadie Sun, Carlmont’s AP Computer Science teacher. “I think for sure that AI is here to stay. If we don’t leverage it and others do, that puts us at a disadvantage.”
As the TFAIA may serve as a blueprint for other states to follow suit in implementing transparency-based bills, support remains for large AI developers to have some guardrails in their practices.
“When we designed other machines, such as airplanes, we came up with requirements so more of society could use them. Now, we are dealing with very complex machinery. How can we not have some requirements?” Agrawal said.
