OpenAI backs slew of California AI bills while calling for national regulation

OpenAI is throwing its support behind four California bills aimed at tightening artificial intelligence safeguards as the company calls on Congress to establish mandatory national rules for advanced AI systems.The company said Wednesday that it supports bills that would create a framework for independent AI safety assessments, establish standards for AI auditors, impose new protections against children using AI companion chatbots, and require AI models to follow federal screening standards intended to guard against AI-enabled biological threats.All four bills have passed the California legislature and are headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) desk. “We’ve reached a new chapter in AI capabilities, and that demands a new chapter for AI policy,” OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane wrote. “No company, industry, or government can meet this challenge alone. We need to meet this moment with a bias toward meaningful action over policy perfection.”OpenAI is also seeking voluntary safety standards across the AI industry and international agreements governing how advanced AI capabilities are measured, risks are managed, and human control is maintained.But the company says voluntary measures are not enough.“We want to work with Congress on mandatory, capability-based national AI safety regulation,” Lehane wrote.Until then, the company is encouraging states to act. OpenAI has previously backed AI safety measures in California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, arguing that states can establish a common baseline that Congress could eventually adopt nationally.Lehane called that approach “reverse federalism.”“These bills are not a substitute for federal regulation,” Lehane said of the California legislation. “They are serious efforts that can protect people now, demonstrate what workable safeguards look like, and help build momentum for federal action.”OpenAI said some of the California bills it now supports were not previously endorsed but that it changed its position after a recent acceleration in AI capabilities.Meanwhile, concerns about the risks of artificial superintelligence have been raised by some inside the industry.Jacob Coxon, a researcher at rival AI company Anthropic, announced his resignation Tuesday, saying he was alarmed by the direction of the technology. He accused both Anthropic and OpenAI of racing toward autonomous and potentially self-improving systems.TRUMP SAYS IT’S ‘OK WITH ME’ IF REPUBLICANS DISAGREE WITH HIM ON DATA CENTERS“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote on X, arguing that the companies are “gambling with our lives.”Coxon said OpenAI had not sufficiently internalized what he called the “civilizational stakes” of advanced AI.