Parents ask New York governor to approve AI safety bill
What's the story
Over 150 parents have urged New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act. The letter was sent on Friday, asking for the bill to be signed without any amendments. The RAISE Act requires developers of large AI models such as Meta, OpenAI, Deepseek, and Google to create safety plans and follow transparency rules about reporting safety incidents.
Legislative journey
RAISE Act: A response to AI-related risks
The RAISE Act passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly in June. However, this week, Hochul proposed a nearly complete rewrite of the bill, making it more favorable to tech companies. Many AI companies are against the legislation. The AI Alliance, which includes Meta, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Snowflake, Uber, AMD, Databricks, and Hugging Face, expressed their "deep concern" over the RAISE Act in a letter sent to New York lawmakers in June.
Parental concerns
Parents' letter highlights AI's potential dangers
The letter sent to Hochul by ParentsTogether Action and the Tech Oversight Project, highlights that some signatories have "lost children to the harms of AI chatbots and social media." They described the RAISE Act as "minimalist guardrails" that should be made law. The bill, as passed by the New York State Legislature, would only regulate large companies spending hundreds of millions on AI development.
Disclosure requirements
RAISE Act mandates disclosure of large-scale safety incidents
The RAISE Act would require developers to disclose large-scale safety incidents to the attorney general and publish safety plans. They would also be prohibited from releasing a frontier model if it could create an unreasonable risk of critical harm. This is defined as death or serious injury of 100 people or more, or damages worth $1 billion or more due to rights in money or property resulting from creation of chemical, biological, radiological nuclear weapon.