California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed a sweeping Big Tech censorship bill which favored Google over open-source tech developers..
On Sunday afternoon, Newsom announced his veto of the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act. Had it been enacted, the bill would have made open-source artificial intelligence (AI) developers responsible for other people’s use and modification of their technology, likely moving the entire AI industry towards the censorship-heavy closed-source models of California tech giant Google.
In a statement explaining his veto, Newsom wrote: “the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions [of AI] – so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”
Google operates a closed-source AI called Gemini, which can only be seen and modified behind closed doors by the company’s own engineers, with even the product’s licensees kept …