California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed some of the toughest laws in US history regulating the field of artificial intelligence, with three bills aimed at cracking down on AI deepfakes that could influence elections, and two more banning Hollywood studios from creating AI clones of actors' bodies and voices without their consent.
“California is home to many of the world's leading AI companies and is committed to leveraging these transformative technologies to solve pressing challenges while studying the risks they pose,” Newsom's office said in a press release on Tuesday.
One of California's new laws, AB 2655, requires major online platforms like Facebook and X to remove or label AI deepfakes related to elections and create channels for reporting such content. Candidates and officeholders can seek injunctions if major online platforms do not comply with the law.
Another law, 2355, would require disclosure of AI-generated political ads, meaning Trump might now be able to get away with posting an AI deepfake on Truth Social that Taylor Swift supports him (she supported Kamala Harris). The FCC has proposed a similar disclosure requirement at the national level, and it already outlaws robocalls using AI-generated voices.
The two latest AI bills signed into law Tuesday were pushed by SAG-AFTRA, the largest screen and broadcast actors union in the U.S., and create new standards for California's media industry. AB 2602 requires studios to get permission from actors before creating AI-generated replicas of their voices or likenesses, while AB 1836 prohibits studios from creating digital replicas of deceased people without the consent of their families (legally permitted replicas have been used in recent Alien, Star Wars, and other films, for example).
Governor Newsom is currently reviewing several AI-related bills, including the highly contentious SB 1047, which the California Senate has sent to the Governor for final approval. During a conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Tuesday, Governor Newsom reportedly expressed deference to SB 1047 opponents who expressed concerns that the bill could have a chilling effect on the open source community. The Governor has two weeks to sign or veto the bill.