Artificial Intelligence

The choice of our next Governor is critical to whether AI harms or helps the people of California. With AI capabilities advancing exponentially and California, specifically, being home to the world’s leading AI companies, a “pro-AI, pro-human” approach is required to ensure that smart guardrails are built now versus after catastrophic harm occurs, preserving AI’s promise for humanity.

As your Governor, I will never lose sight of this and will not be afraid to make Big Tech come to the table. 

Job Disruption

Artificial intelligence will massively impact our workforce. The disruption ahead threatens to concentrate enormous wealth in the hands of a few companies while eliminating the livelihoods of hard-working Californians. Because we only have a narrow window of time before AI job disruption hits, we will need to act fast. California must show the country how AI can benefit workers.

As your Governor, I will bring a pro-worker agenda to the State Capitol. To lay the building blocks, I will work with the legislature to require employers to disclose when layoffs are driven by AI, in addition to requiring state contractors and large employers to periodically submit aggregate reports of AI-driven employment changes. I intend to focus not only on the quantity of jobs, but also on their quality. I’ll guard California workers from harmful uses of AI, like surveillance and intimidation on the job – whether it’s continuous monitoring of bathroom breaks or disciplinary decisions made by unaccountable algorithms.

Since AI is a transformative technology, we need to be prepared for a potentially unprecedented scale of disruption. I will invest in our world-renowned UC and community college system and launch a statewide public hiring program to expand opportunities for displaced workers to serve their communities through care work, infrastructure, climate adaptation, and more. What’s more, I will build a California AI Transition Fund that activates as job displacement accelerates – financed by the AI companies raking in profits – to provide wage insurance and relief for impacted workers.

Whether you’re a trucker, actor, healthcare worker, software engineer, or recent graduate struggling to land their first job, my promise to you is clear: I will fight to ensure that AI leaves no one behind and that Californians share in the fruits of the industry we built.

Data Centers

As the home of many AI companies leading in our economic transformation, with data centers being the engine of that transformation, California has a unique role to play in ensuring that growth does not come without accountability. Anything less than that is unfulfilled potential. As Governor of California, I will make sure that any data center built in our state benefits the workers building them and the communities that they are near. 

I will work with the legislature to require that companies proposing data centers pay for any increased energy or water consumption costs so that they aren’t passed onto consumers, require that companies pay for any improvements to the grid incurred, and require that all projects are subject to strong labor standards. 

Safety 

As a single-mother of three kids, I hear on a regular basis about the negative impacts that artificial intelligence systems are having on their peers and people around this state generally. For too long, Californians have watched as their leaders allowed for companies to exploit them for profit without any meaningful guardrails.

As your Governor, I will make sure that the legislature continues building on the meaningful work that many have been pursuing to ensure that there are legal consequences for harmful deployments of this technology. Penalties for companies harming our kids and all constituents of California should be meaningful and not something that companies can simply allocate budgeting for. 

California has made great progress in requiring companies of this powerful technology to publish what they are doing to protect Californians. But, as Governor, I want to take a step further. 

Transparency is not enough. We should be requiring mandatory audits of the safety and security plans for these companies to make sure that they’re putting their money where their mouths are. Regardless of whether the context is youth safety or mitigation of catastrophic risk, companies at the frontier of this technology need to be held to account. 

There is increasing concern that, whether it be inadvertent or intentional, that a risk relative to the loss of control of a very capable model could have disastrous consequences. As your Governor, I will treat this issue with the attention it deserves by focusing on the following:  

• Liability for Catastrophic Harms: AI companies should be liable for harms caused by their models above 1 billion dollars in property damages and/or 100 deaths from a single incident including if this is a result of losing control of their models. 
• Pre-deployment Assessments: Requiring developers of advanced AI models to conduct and document safety testing before deployment or wide release. 
• Minimum Safety Standards: Strengthening current laws to ensure there are minimum safety standards that apply to all large AI developers.

Innovation and Democracy

California, with 32 of 50 of the top AI companies, continues to lead in the space of AI Innovation. As Governor, I will ensure that we diversify the options available for job opportunities in California outside of just a few leading companies and that the talent hired by California companies is representative of the diversity of our great state. 

As Governor, I will make sure that we fund CalCompute– a publicly owned cloud computing cluster established by Senate Bill 53 (Wiener) last year. It is imperative that California democratizes access to AI and incentivizes competition in California so that a handful of companies don’t dominate the market. 

As an educator, I know that education is a pipeline for success. I will work with our community colleges and university systems to identify and fund additional educational pathways in order to diversify the talent in the field of artificial intelligence. 

Additionally, in the hands of an authoritarian like President Trump, AI has the power to be used as a dangerous tool of repression. California has to be the firewall. As your Governor, I’ll strengthen CCPA protections for the age of AI, strictly prohibit the use of AI-powered facial recognition in public spaces without a warrant, and ensure that California agencies can’t share biometric data with federal authorities like immigration enforcement, building on our legacy as a sanctuary state. We will not let this state’s technology, this state’s data, or this state’s people be conscripted into a digital authoritarian’s fantasy.

Any responsible government must grapple with the challenges presented by AI as a rapidly evolving technology.  California is no exception, and in fact, must lead here. Your Governor must ensure that AI does not impede our democracy.