¶ Intro / Opening
Ladies and gentlemen , welcome back to another episode of privacy , please . I'm your host , cameron Ivy , along with my other host , gabe gums . How we doing , doing well . We're doing good , we're solid , fantabulous . Are we living the dream or living la vida loca ?
The dream a porqué .
I know porqué no los dos .
Why not both ? Why not the ? Dose the two to what the out for getting all those dogs . Why not both ? I choose one when you can have them all that's true , that's very true .
Well , welcome , it's another lovely week , will we in the second week of February , second week forever ?
Yeah , anyone who's listening to this , it's too late to a bunch of your significant
¶ California's New Legislation on AI Regulation
other flowers . You don't mess up . If you listen to this and You're wondering how much time do I have left . The answer is it's too late .
It's true , but what you could do , hmm , well , it's gonna be too late to promote it , but we do have a day date tomorrow we do with Heidi sass . Yeah , if you're feeling , if you're feeling frisky and Want to join us on a live podcast edition of privacy , please , but this might air after that .
So I don't know why I'm promoting it , but any who I'm traveling , you're just that hit time traveling .
So here's what you're gonna do listeners , you're gonna go listen to the recorded episode of that live , which will drop after you hear this episode . That's true , that's true , very true . That's the order of operations .
It's also February . What else do we celebrate in February ? Gay , with some black history , if it is , it is no .
For a second I felt , put on this part , it's like oh wait , I know the answer . Oh Me , choose me . I know this one , I know this one Black history .
Yeah , it's the shortest month of the year as well . Yeah , yeah .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , no , it's , uh , it's . It's a solid 28 days . It's larger than zero days , but it's less than you know 30 . It's neither here nor there really like it's . It's a month .
Yeah , it's a month , it's just another month . This is another month . Holidays are interesting , just ways to obviously make money . It seems there are like .
Even these awareness holidays get weird right Like because all the corporation try to cash in on them . Mm-hmm but , but here I'll give my . I'll give my standard black history month plug . Go read some James Baldwin this month .
If you've never read him , go pick up some Baldwin and read , or maybe listen to a podcast about him , or maybe watch the documentary that PBS made about James Baldwin . Oh , he is . He is a writer , one of the one of the best writers of the 20th century , quite frankly .
What's a ? Where can you ? Where can you stream that Documentary ? You know ?
I think you can go to just like PBS or good PBS organ and like granite laser there , probably Netflix , I don't , so I don't 100% know it . So it was produced by PBS , so I'm certain that if you go to PBS or you know , it'll take a local station whenever find it from there .
But um , the podcast reveal also has a great piece , not about him directly , but about someone who studied James Baldwin . So that's a great pick up . So if you don't mess with the podcast reveal , I'd highly recommend it anyway . There's one where they cover James Baldwin .
I don't know , it's two or three episodes go worth a listen , but that's my Black History Month shout out .
I love it . I'll check that out . Go check out some .
James Baldwin . If you've never mess with James Baldwin , one of the best American writers of the 20th century , go do so .
And I would imagine he's an African American man .
He is , most certainly he's not related to Alec Baldwin no no no , he is the most African American of men , in fact , yeah , he's extremely African .
American . I'm going to be honest , I don't think I've . I don't know if I know him , Maybe if I've .
He probably will recognize his face when you see him . Maybe , maybe not , it's hard to say , it's really hard to say . But yeah , get familiar .
He wrote a lot of books . You're saying he wrote a number of books , I think the one he's .
One of the ones he's most famous for is one that's called Notes of a Native Son . Speaking of , you know , his being African American . He has a book that speaks about his experience as a Black man in America .
That's interesting .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , he has another one . That and he was what you said . He was in the 20s , 20th century , 20th century 20th century okay . Yeah , he was writing in the 60s and 70s .
Okay , okay , oh man , that was a lot of cocaine during that time and , yeah , a lot of things , A lot of things , a lot of things , a lot of things yeah , yeah , james was an interesting man , he was .
He's a lot of things he's . I mean the number of books he's written I don't know the number of there , it's probably north of 20 or so Most of the fiction , most of the fiction . I've not , admittedly , read a lot of his fiction . I've read most of his nonfiction , but I've read some of his fiction also and it's good stuff , it's pretty good stuff .
Well , maybe we'll , if you show us , share some of those . I'll add them into the show notes , if anybody's interested . Yeah , you know what We'll do , that We'll make that a thing , why not ? So , anyways , let's jump in . So I'll let you kick it off , gabe .
So what are we talking about today ? So we weren't going to do overreactions , but we wanted to cover some new legislation hitting the uh , hitting the California coast in particular , and so we've talked about this in the past . We suspected our soodseer friend in particular . He suspected that we were going to see more AI regulation .
Right , we're going to see regulation around AI at all , and one of the general challenges is we still fail to see any , any meaningful hell . Even privacy regulation at the national level Right , and so , like California , decided to do their own thing and release CCPA .
So , in a similar vein , california said well , we're not going to wait for the federal government to do anything about regulating AI , we're just going to go do it ourselves , because that's , that's how we roll . We're California . And so a new bill was introduced SB 1047 . That's , that's a SB 1047 . And it is . It is the bill is to regulate AI .
Um , now , sorry to cut you off when . Yeah , just for listeners , if and I'm I'm a little curious too , but once , when , a when someone introduces a new regulation , does that mean it has to go up for vote and it's still not an actual ? It's not law ? It's not law yet .
Yeah , yeah yeah , it is . It has just been proposed . It's been proposed , it's just a bill . It is just a bill on Capitol Hill and it is making its way up to Congress , for Well , in this case , it's making its way
¶ SB 1047's Impact on AI Regulation
up through California's governing process .
Which is good to see , because AI is rapidly growing and a lot of companies are trying to use it , and everyone's worried about the abuses of it and all those other things . Yeah , everyone's worried about those things .
In particular . One of the things that a lot of people worry about with regulation in general , especially as it pertains to technology , is regulations constraints on innovation . You over-regulate things and then you make it hard for folks to innovate in that area .
Yeah , what this bill is purporting to do is to balance safety with innovation , and the gentleman who's introduced the bill , wiener . He makes a very bold statement here and I'll just repeat it verbatim so I don't mess it up . He says if Congress at some point is able to pass a strong pro-innovation , pro-safety AI law , I'll be the first to chair that .
But I'm not holding my breath .
What do you think about that quote ?
I mean client do agree with them , but just generally speaking , I happen to believe that Congress is dysfunctional . I don't think that's even a controversial statement . Again , this is the point in show where I tell our listeners don't bother adding me , because it's just not going to be honest with you at your local congressman if you got a problem .
I think if you're smart nowadays , you want to be right in the middle , because both sides are crazy , both sides have their crazies , both sides are crazy .
It's all those sides crazy , but collectively , which is what we're talking about Congress , which is a collection of all those sides , I wouldn't hold my breath either for them to pass a strong pro-innovation , pro-safety . I could see them passing things that were not super useful to us as consumers as it exists . Not passing anything at all , it's already dangerous .
It's already dangerous . It's almost as though there are cars on the road and there are no rules . Everyone's just kind of trying .
Isn't that kind of how it is in India ?
It's literally how it is in India . I mean , I've seen videos .
That's all I know .
I've been .
There might be rules .
I don't think there are rules . They're just not the rules you expect . In fact , I would say they are 100% rules . They're just not what you expect them to be . I say that only because things do flow , that's true , it's just really fast . It's chaotic and chaotic and it's loud .
It's fascinating to watch .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . But even the unseen rules of society exist , right , right . So this bill , what else does it do ? It does a couple of other things .
Let's see .
It establishes something known as CalCompute , a public AI compute cluster that will be a resource available for researchers , startups and community groups to fuel innovation . So , this is an interesting part of the regulation it is not just designed to regulate , but it is designed to establish a resource for others to be able to use .
You could argue this is attempting to democratize AI , so that innovation isn't just stifled , but it isn't just the domain of those with lots of money , which would be very useful , very useful . So a government funded , in this case , resource for research and startups and community groups to fuel their innovation , I think that's a hell of a great idea .
Yeah , that's the kind of thing that should happen both at the state level I'm sorry , at the federal level and at every single state level . That's the kind of thing where , if the federal government partnered with state governments and we all had these accessible to us as states and counties to fill those needs . that'd be incredible yeah .
That'd be incredible . Looks like it helps prevent price discrimination .
Yeah what does that mean ?
I mean that's like yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah yeah .
I assume that's related to the establishment of Cal compute right , like it would be difficult to . For example , a group of researchers shopping in the open marketplace is going to be beholden to you know whoever the private companies are that sell that resource right , and if they all decide that this thing is worth you know $1,000 an hour , then that's the price .
That's the price . It's neither hand or there . But this appears to be to want to put some measures in place to not discriminate against any specific group of people and deal with both anti-competitive behavior , like I just described , as well as normalizing and or democratizing the price of AI resources . It's a bold piece of legislation .
Yeah , putting this , putting this into practice , is going to be interesting , but it is . It does appear very sensible .
Yeah .
I personally have no strong criticisms of it .
Well , like you said , it's better than doing nothing , though I think it is better they're trying .
And some regulation is not always better than no regulation , to be clear . But I think this is one of those areas where , like , you got to start somewhere , like you yeah , we have to start somewhere . You just start small and then you build from there , but we got to start somewhere .
Protect whistleblowers , large AI companies , yeah , Okay , and then so obviously there's that . But what about the critics arguing about the bill's impact and like let's talk about the innovation part of it . It doesn't seem like it's going to affect that part of it . Now it sounds like the biggest criticism .
It sounds like the biggest criticism is folks are worried about regulatory overreach . You know the bill's definition of covered models is scrutinized with an emphasis on distinguishing between state of the art models and derivative models . So what they mean by that is .
I think what they mean by that is how do you tell the difference between , say , an AI model that you created right Like it's just something you created , it was purely innovative , no one else had and some derivative of that ? How do you cover these regulatory points with derivative works , et cetera ? I don't have an answer to that .
I don't see the general concern of potential regulatory overreach . I think you could say that about most regulations that they all have . By definition , they all have the ability to overreach , but I think underreach is equally a problem .
In this case in particular , I think the risk of overreach just isn't as real for me , based on what I've read through so far here and what I can't read through , which is any federal guidelines at all on the topic .
Something in this article gave that you noticed wasn't mentioned , that you thought of about this entire bill . It could be a potential negative or positive impact .
I think I don't see where it attempted to intersect with consumer privacy . Maybe it'll come out in other revisions , but California's already led the way on digital privacy with CCPA and it would only make sense that any regulating of AI would have some effect on that .
But maybe the real answer here is and I am not a lawyer , so I'm probably interpreting this through my layman's , security dude's eyes and privacy expert eyes , versus a lawyer's eyes but maybe CCPA already has enough coverage such that this does not require it . Right , you don't really want laws overlapping .
They should be distinct and unique and they should be governing of specific things and not a bunch of overlapping things . I would have expected something here that spoke a bit more to that .
Yeah that's fair , but again , maybe the real examination here should be not just what the impact of this law in a vacuum , but what is the impact of this law when held alongside CCPA . When held alongside CCPA , how does this attempt at regulating AI also play in with , for example ? Because here's the thing about AI it needs data . It needs data .
It must be trained on data . Ccpa is all about protecting data . It's all about protecting data , personal data . Where does the rubber meet the road on these two ? We should kick that question out there to the community . Where do they see the real world intersection of this bill and CCPA ?
We should bring it up on tomorrow's conversation . That's what I was just about to say . I was thinking that too . There it is . I want to bring that up , and I also want to bring up .
You're trying travelers out there .
I also want to ask her about her thoughts on the new CCPA that put into effect of the CPRA that is now immediately , I think , active . What no effect . That's going to be a big deal , especially for , obviously , California . Would you say this conclusion about this new SB 1047 and how it represents a step forward in regulating AI ?
Concerns about its efficacy and potential loopholes and impact on innovation persist among both supporters and critics .
I think that's a true state . I think that's a true state . I think critics like the ones I referenced that see some potential for overreach , and myself as a supporter . I think we both see it as a positive step forward regardless .
Who would be the representative of a supporter and who would be a critic of this ?
Well , Go ahead . I say the obvious supporter is the is the guy who brought the bill forward , but who might be some critics . I Don't want to call anyone up by name , but there's some folks online that that have that have , that are criticizing about it and I don't want to not call that we just go allegedly , allegedly yeah .
Well , I mean for no reason , and it's their valid opinion . They are valid opinions . Yeah and I and I don't mean to discount them at all , in fact I I count them , I count them quite heavily I don't think that they represent any specific , unique group of people , any homogenous group of people .
But you know , some folks are just always naturally hesitant of more regulation , and I would agree with them generally speaking . I would generally agree with them .
Okay , are we talking about like old whites ?
Are we , are we ? Are they generally worrying about more regulation ? I don't think they are actually . Maybe they are .
I Don't know , just thinking about people that don't want to change , or make a change .
Oh , that's fair , I mean I might be going into a whole .
I'm gonna open it up a whole chest .
I'm getting to that point in my life where , like I don't , I'm not really in the whole lot of change . You know , I think you may just be sure of old . Get off my yard , yet stay off my digital grass , that's right .
Seriously , okay , well , this is interesting . I love this , though . I love the fact that you know , sometimes this stuff can take a long time , but it's nice to see that Things are trying to move forward .
Sure , even thousand miles . It begins with one step .
Yeah it's fascinating and it's there's no , there's no end to change in surprise when it comes to this , this realm , which is awesome for us . Yeah , for sure , for sure . But yeah , that's it for this week , anything else that'll do .
That is a bit , always a pleasure . Thanks for joining us again , folks . We'll catch you next time . Catch on the live episodes .
Catch you on the flippy flap .