OpenAI supports California bill aimed at identifying AI-generated content: report

Microsoft-backed (NASDAQ:MSFT) OpenAI has come out in favor of a bill moving through the California state legislature, which is intended to mitigate the misuse of content generated by artificial intelligence.

The bill, AB 3211, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of District 14, has widespread support. It has already passed through the Assembly by a vote of 62-0. The state senate is expected to vote on the bill before the end of the month.

The bill, dubbed the California Digital Content Provenance Standards, would require gen-AI providers to “apply provenance data to synthetic content produced or significantly modified by a generative AI system that the provider makes available, as those terms are defined, and to conduct adversarial testing exercises, as prescribed,” according to a bill summary.

OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon, wrote a letter to Wicks supporting the bill, according to Reuters.

“New technology and standards can help people understand the origin of content they find online, and avoid confusion between human-generated and photorealistic AI-generated content,” Kwon said in the letter.

The bill also requires large online platforms, such as social media sites, “capable of disseminating specified content to use labels to disclose, as specified, any machine-readable provenance data detected in synthetic content that is distributed on its platform.”

Although the tech industry remains mostly supportive of the above watermarking bill, which is meant to reduce the proliferation of AI deepfakes, OpenAI and others have taken issue with SB 1047, which passed in the state senate by a vote of 32-1 earlier this month.

SB 1047, authored by State Senator Scott Wiener of District 11, would introduce broad changes to how AI is developed and deployed in California. It would “require that a developer, before beginning to initially train a covered model, as defined, comply with various requirements, including implementing the capability to promptly enact a full shutdown, as defined, and implement a written and separate safety and security protocol, as specified.”

The bill would give the California Attorney General authority to bring civil action against companies not deemed in compliance. It would also create a Board of Frontier Models within the Government Operations Agency to aid in regulation of the proposed bill.

Businesses and organizations opposed to SB 1047 include, among many others, Andreessen Horowitz, Meta Platforms (META), UC Berkley and a plethora of AI startups.