Open Letter: Please Veto Senate Bill 1047

Call to Raise the Bar on AI Safety Laws to Higher Standards in California

This signatories list is being updated frequently as new signatures pour in. Last updated at September 16, 2023 18:00 PST

To add your voice to this veto, click here to jump to the form.

The Letter

Dear Governor Newsom,

As you have said time and time again, California is home to some of the brightest minds, the most cutting edge technology and the highest regarded academic research in the world. That includes ground-breaking work on Artificial Intelligence and the future of this burgeoning field.

As it stands, California is poised to lead the way for the next major shift in technology. Unfortunately, SB 1047 (Weiner), which is fraught with unintended consequences, would stifle open-source AI development and have a downstream chilling effect not only on AI investment and expansion, but on the small business entrepreneurship that makes California a leader.

We are all for thoughtful regulation of AI that meets the required quality bar of being grounded in evidence and concretely making AI safer, while promoting innovation.

But SB 1047 does not meet this bar.

For those reasons, we ask for your veto on the bill.

Sincerely,

Signatories (228)

1. Ion Stoica, Professor, UC Berkeley
2. Joseph E. Gonzalez, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
3. Matei Zaharia, Associate Professor of Computer Science, UC Berkeley
4. Brendan Iribe, Founder & CEO, Sesame, Oculus
5. Mike Knoop, Co-founder, Zapier, ARC Prize
6. Barry McCardel, CEO, Hex
7. Beyang Liu, CTO, Sourcegraph
8. Danielle Fong, CEO, lightcell energy
9. Rahul Sood, President & Co-Founder, Irreverent Labs
10. Alex Reibman, Co-founder/CEO, Agency AI
11. Puya Yazdi, CEO, KureAI
12. Shwetank, Founder, Sanraksh
13. Abinash Tripathy, Founder, Stealth AI Startup
14. Vivian Shen, CEO, Acely AI and Juni Learning
15. Nathan Lands, Founder, Lore
16. Joscha Bach, AI Strategist
17. Jeffrey Quesnelle, Founder, Nous Research
18. Mikhail Ermolenko, CTO, Inworld AI
19. Emmanouil Koukoumidis, CEO, Learning Machines AI
20. Daniel George, CEO & Founder, ThirdEar AI, Inc.
21. Guillaume Verdon, Founder & CEO, Extropic AI
22. Emmanuel de Maistre, Co-founder & CEO, Scenario Inc
23. Daniel Jeffries, President, Kentauros AI
24. Tejas Hosangadi, CEO, Preloop Inc
25. John Carbrey, Managing Director, FutureSight Ventures
26. Zachary Beaver, Machine Learning Engineer, Stealth Startup
27. Lauren Wagner, Advisor, Radium Ventures
28. Brian Boyd, CTO/Chief Architect, Cardamom Cosmos (startup)
29. Cassandra Feilbach, Founder/Researcher, Sentientis
30. Romil Bhardwaj, PhD Student, UC Berkeley
31. Yutian Yang, Data Scientist, Rutgers University
32. John Twigg, Mr, Crankcaseaudio
33. Kostas Tsiampouris, Software Engineer, Meta
34. Alex Rosen, Founder, Sense
35. Jeson Patel, CTO, The Coterie
36. Kyle Casterline, CTO, Barricade
37. Siddhartha Jain, Senior Research Scientist, NVIDIA
38. Premnath Shenoy, Graduate Student Researcher and Doctoral Student, University of Pittsburgh and AMD
39. Brad Neuberg, Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Planet Labs
40. Asad Awan, CEO, Potrero Labs
41. Niko Lorantos, Student, AI Researcher, University of Massachusetts
42. Rodrigo Teixeira, Senior Manager, NA
43. Nikhil Handigol, Co-Founder, Forward Networks
44. Menarul Alam, Mr., Roblox
45. Aaron Gokaslan, PhD Candidate, Cornell University
46. Ed Choudhry, CEO, Barricade AI
47. Chandrahasa Mutyala, Founder, Backstory AI
48. José María Ruiz de Velasco, Head of AI, Picaio
49. Aditya Mukewar, Machine Learning Engineer, N/A
50. Benjamin Boehme, Founder, Basic Inc.
51. Russell Heddleston, CEO, Distill
52. Rohan Tandon, Manager, Panther Labs
53. Cole Roberts, CEO, Co-Founder, Tulip Trials
54. Chris Lengerich, Founder, Context Fund
55. Michael Paskett, Research Scientist, Meta
56. Travis Porco, Dr, n/a
57. Shivani Mitra, CEO, Nous Research
58. KheteshB Akoliya, Founder & CEO, Edutor App
59. Eric Auld, Mr, Together AI
60. Balaji Krishnapuram, VP Engineering, Pinterest
61. Brian, CEO, Mind Machine Learning
62. Nikolas Ciminelli, Investor, Samsung Next
63. Austin Kinghorn, CEO, Veraciety Corp.
64. Ovais Tariq, CEO, Tigris Data
65. Christopher Wood, CEO, Earlyworm, LLC
66. Selvakumar Saraangan, CTO, Crossfill
67. Sandip C, Founder, Cymetrix Software Inc
68. John Bradley, Associate, Presidio Technology Partners
69. Christian Bruno, Self, Self
70. Vadim Asadov, Co-founder, Symbolic Mind Inc.
71. Saumitra Buragohain, CEO & Founder, Borde
72. Adrian Macneil, CEO, Foxglove
73. Mohammadmehdi Ataei, Senior Research Scientist (AI), Autodesk
74. Robin Rombach, CEO, Black Forest Labs
75. Miguel Paredes, Venture Partner, Silicon Foundry
76. Nicholas Ptacek, Founder, ReadWriteReality, Inc.
77. David Raskino, CEO, Irreverent Labs, Inc.
78. David Mytton, CEO, Arcjet Labs, Inc.
79. Sam Cassidy, CEO/Founder, Gem Hunt Inc
80. Milad Khademinori, Researcher, Queen's University
81. Nick Schifano, CEO, FastCatalog.ai
82. Arun Bevara, Founder, Niveye
83. Matthew Persons, Senior Software Engineer, Google
84. Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
85. Panagiotis, Senior Scientist, Learning Machines AI
86. Logan, Researcher, Abundance Institute
87. Andy Kidd, Partnerships, Abundance Institute
88. Taylor Barkley, Director of Public Policy, Abundance Institute
89. Jessica Melugin, Director, Competitive Enterprise Institute
90. Daniel Castro, Director, Center for Data Innovation
91. Konstantinos Aisopos, Staff Research Scientist, Learning Machines AI
92. Matt Popovich, Cofounder & CEO, LegislatureAI
93. Michael Feiertag, Partner, AllegisCyber Capital
94. Ryan Nabil, Director of Technology Policy and Senior Fellow, National Taxpayers Union Foundation
95. Scott Brennan, Publisher, Access Publishing
96. Keegan mcbride, Lecturer in AI, Government, and Policy, Oxford Internet Institute
97. William Tatum, CEO, Atlas 3DSS
98. Jan Alberts, Mr, N/A
99. Nathan Leamer, Executive Director, Digital First Project
100. Kamal Gupta, Researcher, Tesla
101. Rich Skrenta, Executive Director, Common Crawl Foundation
102. Brian Chau, Executive Director, Alliance for the Future
103. Ajay Thakur, Software Engineer, Uber Technologies
104. Ed Kennedy, Director of Partnerships & Growth, RunDiffusion
105. Ron Williams, CEO & Founder, Kindo
106. Kayla Harris, Community Manager, Abundance Institute
107. Akif Malik, Partner, PodiumVC
108. Eric Little, Outside General Counsel, Ladris Technologies, Inc.
109. William Minshew, Founder, Splits
110. William Zeng, Machine Learning Engineer, Open source AI community
111. Srikanth Murthy, Principal - VP, WBD
112. Bogdan Denisov, mr., CPP
113. Matthew Idell, Software Engineer, Cornerstone
114. Michael Saxon, PhD Candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara
115. Jay Lee-Gopalan, Co-Founder/CEO, Jinso Labs
116. Louis Anslow, Founder, Pessimists Archive
117. Joshua Aymett, Software Engineer, Kindo
118. Ellery Buntel, Mr, Telepathic Technologies
119. Trevor McCourt, CTO, Extropic
120. Bryan Vann, CTO, Kindo
121. Tom Walczak, Mr, TW Consulting
122. Adam Yarger, Software Engineer, DoorDash
123. Jacob Tear, Writer, jaketear.com
124. Alexander Carlson, Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Autodesk
125. Stu Griffiths, Designer, PlayAI
126. Arthur Beckman, Retired, Self
127. James Baker, Mr, UMBC
128. Ramaranjan Ruj, Mr, None
129. Alexander Winter, Founder, Orbital Alchemy
130. Christiano Boria, Chief Strategy Officer, include.ai
131. Partha Seetala, CEO, Robin.io
132. Todd O'Boyle, Senior Director, Technology Policy, Chamber of Progress
133. Colin Sidoti, CEO, Clerk, Inc.
134. Surya Ganguli, Associate professor, Stanford University
135. Kuldeep Dhaka, Independent Researcher
136. Coleman Kennedy, President, KCW Management
137. Jack Soslow, Partner, a16z
138. Yuriy Dybskiy, Founder, CEO, Puma.tech
139. Adrian Barbir, CMO, Braintrust
140. Mike Maples, Partner, Floodgate
141. Brian Golbere, BDFL, N/A
142. Vitaly Gordon, Co-founder & CEO, Faros AI
143. Sarah Cone, Managing Partner, Social Impact Capital
144. Andreas Blattmann, Co-Founder, Black Forest Labs
145. Sonia Sarao, Co-founder, Freedom With AI
146. Ramon Iglesias, CEO, Founder, Clementine
147. Ramesh Durairaj, Vice President Engineering, F5 Inc
148. Joshua March, CEO, Aurora Bio
149. Sundeep Peechu, Concerned Citizen, Felicis
150. Donald Clark, Account Manager, TDK
151. Ryan Clayton, Mr., N/A
152. Kelly Turnure, Na, Na
153. William Wang, Mellichamp Chair Professor of AI, University of California, Santa Barbara
154. Jordan Coursey, Founder, Stealth
155. Evan Zimmerman, CEO, Edge
156. Luke McDermott, PhD Student, UC San Diego
157. Jannik Malte Meissner, Co-Founder, Neuralfinity
158. Mimi Brooks, Software Engineer, Unaffiliated
159. Rob Leclerc, Managing Partner, AgFunder
160. Paul Reuter, Self-employed, sole proprietorship
161. Andrew Erickson, Software Engineer, n/a
162. Manish Shah, Founder, VAIL
163. Christopher David, Founder & CEO, OpenAgents
164. Bryan E. Burr, Software Engineer, QC Ware
165. Kye Gomez, CEO, Swarms
166. Varun Mathur, Co-founder and CEO, Hyperspace
167. Ronnie Wiessbrod, Chief Strategy Officer, KU
168. Paul Kane, Keep California competitive, N/A
169. Alexander Campbell, CEO, Rose AI
170. Corey Doney, CFO, California Institute of Machine Consciousness
171. Einar Vollset, Dr, TinySeed
172. Brian Holtz, Software Engineer, Walmart
173. Paul Lasserre, Head of AI partnerships, Large corporation
174. Dean Gebert, VP of Mktg, Kindo
175. Xin Eric Wang, Assistant Professor, UC Santa Cruz
176. Mark Tigson, Assistant Director of Marketing Data, Barona
177. Zachary Kallenborn, Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies
178. Devin McCormick, Technology and Innovation Policy Analyst, Libertas Institute
179. Mike Maples, Partner, Floodgate
180. Leon Gerard Vandenberg, CEO, Sunified Inc.
181. Ron Williams, CEO, Kindo.ai
182. matt ogle, mister, self
183. Angela strange, General Partner, A16Z
184. Karim Guessous, Founder & CEO, Andala AI
185. Prabhat Jha, Head of Database Engineering, DataStax
186. Ken Kato, CSO, Kindo.ai
187. Michael Ryan, Masters Student, Stanford University
188. Tiffany Long, Dir. of Community, Kindo
189. Sheel Mohnot, General Partner, Better Tomorrow Ventures
190. Bryan Vann, CTO, Kindo
191. Jed White, Co-founder and CTO, Andi
192. Dustin Podell, Researcher, Black Forest Labs
193. Sumith Kulal, Co-founder, Black Forest Labs
194. Kyle Lacey, MLOps Engineer, Black Forest Labs
195. Zhiyu Chen, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas
196. Eddy Lazzarin, CTO, a16z crypto
197. Tim Dockhorn, Co-Founder, Black Forest Labs
198. Ornias DMF, Mr, DMF
199. Anthony, Director of AI Open Innovation, IBM
200. Jianfeng Chi, Dr, Meta
201. Dean Gebert, VP of Marketing, Kindo AI
202. Patrick Auld, Concerned Citizen, Patreon
203. Yam Levi, Research Engineer, Black Forest Labs
204. Matthew Tovbin, CTO, Faros AI
205. Pablo Garcia Quint, Technology Policy Fellow, Libertas Institute
206. Joseph Jacks, Founder, OSS Capital
207. Luca Rigazio, VP of AI, Koko, Inc
208. Yann LeCun, Jacob T. Schwartz Professor of Computer Science, New York University
209. Farhan Kaka, Director, Swirlspark
210. Julian Togelius, Associate Professor, New York University
211. Jason Hartley, RVP, Operations, IVX Health
212. Ethan Hughes, Student, UT Dallas
213. Adam Hibble, CEO, Mancer Labs
214. Olivier Duquesne, President, Club LinuX Nord-Pas de Calais (French LinuX User Group)
215. Lukasz Kaiser, Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI
216. Jennifer Winch, Ms., Retired
217. Keith Adams, Mr., Pebblebed
218. David Purse, Founder, Aitrium AI
219. Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO, Solana Labs
220. Viksit Gaur, Entrepreneur, Self
221. Lexi Viripaeff, CTO, Upper Rd
222. Troy Astorino, Co-founder & CTO, PicnicHealth
223. Gary Bradski, CEO, Open Source Vision Foundation
224. Michael Oram, Mr, Michael Oram
225. Oleksii Kuchaiev, Director, AI model alignment, NVIDIA
226. Gabriel Warshauer-Baker, Cofounder, Dragonase
227. Alex Fuller, Researcher, None
228. Shanmuga Tiraen, Creator, Vave

Messages to the Governor

Shwetank (Founder, Sanraksh): "This is going to kill innovation in California"
Brian Boyd (CTO/Chief Architect, Cardamom Cosmos): "Please do not stifle the burgeoning innovation around AI!!"
Vivian Shen (CEO, Acely AI and Juni Learning): "I was born and raised in California, and believe that California is the best place in the world to start a cutting-edge technology company. Unfortunately this bill as written would prematurely stifle innovation in California. As a lifelong Democrat, I also hope that Democrats stay pro-business and focus on rebuilding San Francisco as a destination for entrepreneurs all over the world."
John Twigg (Mr, Crankcaseaudio): "It's too early to regulate. It will put a chill on innovation. Regulate applications (bio terror, fraud) not tools (llm, gen ai)"
Siddhartha Jain (Senior Research Scientist, NVIDIA): "This bill will kill the open source LLM community as we're reliant on pre trained LLMs put out by big orgs. This bill will make it far too risky for them to make models open weights"
Brad Neuberg (Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Planet Labs): "This will destroy AI innovation in California!"
Jeffrey Quesnelle (Founder, Nous Research): "In response to SB 1047 we've begun the process of moving our corporate offices out of CA. It's bad legislation, and deserves to be vetoed. The US tried this with cryptography in the 90s -- today history looks at 64 bit encryption being labelled a "munition" and laughs. The difference with SB 1047 is that it's MUCH easier to relocate to another state than another country. If SB 1047 passes, this will be the outcome."
Rahul Sood (President & Co-Founder, Irreverent Labs): "I'm just tired of aggressive regulation that kills any chance of innovation for a startup in the most important emerging space on earth. Who would you rather win, China or America?"
Aaron Gokaslan (PhD Candidate, Cornell University): "I helped create the modern open source LLM ecosystem five years ago with OpenWebText. Happy to chat."
Ed Choudhry (CEO, Barricade AI): "Don't make us leave California!"
Danielle Fong (CEO, lightcell energy): "This will chill open weights research greatly. It should be much more minimal. I don't believe in this third party model certification. AI is computationally complete -- it's impossible to simulate everything it can do ahead of this, and reasonable care is insufficiently clear"
Rohan Tandon (Manager, Panther Labs): "'AI' is overblown marketing. At it's core, it's math and statistics. We're nowhere near a turning complete artificial intelligence, nor are we likely to be in the next 100 years"
Cole Roberts (CEO, Co-Founder, Tulip Trials): "We are an applied AI company building in healthcare and would not be able to do our work without open source AI. This bill kills that opportunity for us and slows down getting millions of California and Americans the life-saving treatments they need."
Joseph E. Gonzalez (Associate Professor, UC Berkeley): "This bill will kill open-source development of models which is essential for AI research including work on AI safety."
Chris Lengerich (Founder, Context Fund): "On behalf of the CA scientific and startup community (https://www.context.fund/policy/sb_1047_analysis.html), we respectfully ask that you veto this chaotic bill. It makes CA no safer, creates many of its own problems due to ambiguity, and distracts from the real problems and solutions that the scientific community has asked for."
Travis Porco (Dr, n/a): "Please ignore these doomsayers who have no evidence and are adding pointless regulatory burden. **Our existing laws already cover malicious use of products.** No special regulations are needed; we do not expect car manufacturers to be held responsible if criminals use cars badly; we have laws already. This bill will hurt California's competitiveness and it is small wonder California haters love it...he'd love it if we shoot ourselves in the foot."
Beyang Liu (CTO, Sourcegraph): "A veto of SB1047 is important to ensure California remains a vibrant place for startups in the fast evolving AI ecosystem."
Shivani Mitra (CEO, Nous Research): "This bill is an attempt at regulatory capture by powerful monopolies. It will not lead to a 'safer' AI. It will only create more concentrated monopolies and motivate bright young American entrepreneurs to leave California."
Eric Auld (Mr, Together AI): "I am not dogmatic on these issues, but I think this bill is quite premature. We don't yet know the appropriate safety standards for this technology. They are probably specific to the individual application."
Nikolas Ciminelli (Investor, Samsung Next): "Thoughtful regulation is not spurred up from fear mongering. Listen to the research community, not dogmatic thought leaders that make their livings by inspiring fear. This leads to regulatory capture and power in the hands of a few. It only benefits the current oligopolies and monopolies. It kills startups and the ecosystem California is seriously put at risk."
John Bradley (Associate, Presidio Technology Partners): "It seems to me that there is enough disagreement and it is early enough in the day in AI that we should respect the opposition of brilliant AI thinkers like Joscha Bach and pause this regulatory effort."
Mohammadmehdi Ataei (Senior Research Scientist (AI), Autodesk): "This is a once in a career opportunity to gain the trust of many in tech industry. Please have our back."
David Raskino (CEO, Irreverent Labs, Inc.): "This bill is deeply misaligned with the direction of travel on AI discovery and innovation"
Guillaume Verdon (Founder & CEO, Extropic AI): "This bill would severely hamper AI innovation in California and beyond, hurting primarily small startups who would be paralyzed by the regulatory ambiguity. Please veto this bill."
Nick Schifano (CEO, FastCatalog.ai): "At FastCatalog.ai, we rely on open source AI for reasoning tasks. A thriving community of small innovators delivers extraordinary AI advances that would not exist otherwise, all because of the open, permissive nature of open source AI. Regulations targeting specific deployment circumstances are preferable at this stage. Keep AI innovation open!"
Neil Chilson (Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute): "This bill, which requires companies to make their best guess as to what courts will find to be a reasonable standard of care, will freeze AI safety practices at their current state. The safest way to avoid future legal liability will be to do exactly what everyone else is doing. New and innovative approaches to AI safety will risk incurring huge future liability. The resulting AI Safety monoculture will undermine AI safety."
Scott Brennan (Publisher, Access Publishing): "Less regulation is needed in California in general, and specifically in tech."
William Tatum (CEO, Atlas 3DSS): "American Supremacy in AI cannot be hamstrung by local officials who are not aware of the underlying technology nor who are captured by extant entities. The risk to American AI dominance comes from hindering labs with vague and overly broad regulations from a single state."
Daniel Jeffries (President, Kentauros AI): "Please do not get this innovation crushing bill pass. It's gone too far. We are threatening to become Europe here on the day they just released their own devastating report that their regulations are killing their startup ecosystem. We can't make the same mistake here. California is the seat of innovation and it must remain so."
Jan Alberts (Mr, N/A): "Supporters of SB 1047 stand to gain monetarily from this bill and have even set up their own companies to benefit from it and position themselves as the biggest beneficiaries at the cost of innovation and wealth in CA."
Brian Chau (Executive Director, Alliance for the Future): "Protect the open research, open development, and open distribution of cutting-edge software!"
Eric Little (Outside General Counsel, Ladris Technologies, Inc.): "Strong artificial intelligence is more likely to help us solve the problems that face us, than it is to threaten us."
Bryan Vann (CTO, Kindo): "California is the hub of worldwide innovation, and one of the greatest engines of growth in history. Let's not stifle it with poorly thought out regulation that won't really do anything to address the concerns they intend to solve. Let's not turn California into the EU."
Alexander Winter (Founder, Orbital Alchemy): "Please do not let people regulate AI who have no idea how large language models function, this could be a potential threat to California and America's competitiveness and prevent untold societal benefit. Please focus your efforts on solving social issues and optimizing the social contract and making governing agencies, departments, and bodies efficient. The infrastructures are so broken compared to what they can be, please get high class talent with a deep understanding of civilization and statecraft, of the highest integrity, with heart, to address the deeper issues our crumbling systems are facing."
Todd O'Boyle (Senior Director, Technology Policy, Chamber of Progress): "SB 1047 is fundamentally ill-conceived. It regulates model development instead of the bad actors. All to address theoretical harms. The damage to American innovation, however, would be all too real."
Surya Ganguli (Associate professor, Stanford University): "Open source has been the life blood of innovation in the internet, in operating systems, in computer security, and it has and will be too in AI. Regulate use cases. Don't make people scared to develop and release open source models."
Kuldeep Dhaka (Independent Researcher): "It's will have a trickle down effect on the whole open source ecosystem, limiting open access and ultimately creating closed source oligopolies in AI. This bill is like prematurely banning free and open source software around 90s. Laws make sense when there is need for it, rather than made up scenarios."
Coleman Kennedy (President, KCW Management): "Hamstringing AI innovation puts California and all of the USA in a weakened position."
Yuriy Dybskiy (Founder, CEO, Puma.tech): "'They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory .. in open source Ai development' is a possible headline of 2030. As a founder of a small and scrappy startup the only way we can compete with large companies is through leveraging OSS models. If that slows down or if bigger ones become highly regulated it would only mean that companies with $1b+ raises can build anything meaningful. We can have Windows closed source level security (and how that worked out recently) or Linux-level. Up to you 🧑🏻‍💻🌁✨"
Sonia Sarao (Co-founder, Freedom With AI): "Please think long-term impacts of this bill and the future of California tech/ai industry"
Ramesh Durairaj (Vice President Engineering, F5 Inc): "Innovation is the bedrock and flame of progress for California - Lets not extinguish it."
Sundeep Peechu (Concerned Citizen, Felicis): "Please keep CA and America competitive"
William Wang (Mellichamp Chair Professor of AI, University of California, Santa Barbara): "Governor Newsom should veto SB 1047 as it threatens to undermine the quality of AI education and research at UC campuses by diverting resources away from core academic programs, which would harm both students and faculty."
Jordan Coursey (Founder, Stealth): "It's regulatory capture - plain and simple"
Evan Zimmerman (CEO, Edge): "It really is too early for a bill like this, as you've said in your own words. SB 1047 has been rushed and is viewed by many of its proponents as a way to slow down development of a potentially transformative technology that is forming the bedrock of the California recovery. What's the point of making California unfriendly for one of its most vital businesses?"
Rob Leclerc (Managing Partner, AgFunder): "Hollywood is in California because it was chased out of NY by the film monopoly. If this passes people will leave California, or worse the US. There will be a time and a place for safety regulations. This is not it."
Paul Reuter (Self-employed, sole proprietorship): "First of all, this is a state bill. The voices from outside the state, and outside the country are nothing more than our competition. They want to see us fail. California is the most wild west of the West. Many of the big names in industry missed the financial windfalls that they nurtured in their youth, and have resentment for the industrious California residents who make the future into reality. We are building things we believe in. We build things that empower and educate. We wouldn't be able to do this without our predecessors with the same ambition for knowledge and creation. It's easy to catch stupid criminals, impossible to stop smart criminals, and all these regulatory interventions simply slow or stop the creation of useful products. We can cure diseases, and refute false scientific studies with modern technology. When you recognize who stands to benefit from regulations against AI, it's too obvious what they'll choose. Please, let us build. Thank you."
Bryan E. Burr (Software Engineer, QC Ware): "The great state of California is *the* world leader in the development of new and advanced technologies. Let's keep it that way - veto SB1047."
Kye Gomez (CEO, Swarms): "Do you want california to be great or not? if yes, then veto this bill, it's simple."
Varun Mathur (Co-founder and CEO, Hyperspace): "Model are mere compression of data and thus model trainers are distributors, just like web search engines, and should have the full immunity of Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996. Why sign such a regressive bill which violates federal law and drives innovation outside of California?"
Alexander Campbell (CEO, Rose AI): "Don't kill what makes California great!"
Einar Vollset (Dr, TinySeed): "This legislation based on unfalsifiable beliefs about potential harms. Veto SB1047"
Brian Holtz (Software Engineer, Walmart): "AI panic will look silly by 2028"
Paul Lasserre (Head of AI partnerships, Large corporation): "Let's be thoughtful about the consequences of such regulation taking the internet and operating systems as good proxies"
Zachary Kallenborn (Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies): "AI risks are worth worry, but risks need to be better characterized before rushing to regulation and the bill adopts an overly broad scope to "mass casualty," not "catastrophic" CBRN risks. Californian and American security would be better served by concentrating on better risk assessment and characterization."
Devin McCormick (Technology and Innovation Policy Analyst, Libertas Institute): "SB 1047 is a classic case of regulatory overreach that will set a dangerous precedent across the U.S. It's already drawn bipartisan criticism from U.S. Congress members and strong opposition from private industry, who recognize that these vague, heavy-handed mandates would crush AI innovation, especially for open-source projects. Rather than providing real, evidence-based safety improvements, this bill risks stifling tech growth and driving investment away. If this kind of overregulation isn't stopped now, it will spread beyond California, creating a chilling effect on the entire tech ecosystem. Governor Newsom should veto SB 1047 and push back against bad policy that stifles innovation."
Mike Maples (Partner, Floodgate): "Bill Clinton's instincts about the Internet were right in the 1990s. Let things play out a bit and understand what's really happening before getting overly legalistic and regulation heavy. SB1047 is too much government overreach too soon. It's the wrong way for California, the home of Silicon Valley, to show up on the vital stage of providing leadership in AI."
Leon Gerard Vandenberg (CEO, Sunified Inc.): "This is a brazen attempt of regulatory capture by big players with billions of dollars."
Ron Williams (CEO, Kindo.ai): "This bill is regulatory disaster for the future of California and American technology of all kinds. Regulating how much math can be used to build technology will have far reaching effects on fields like medical, energy, farming, education, space, and many others. This hill attacks the heart of the Californian and American economy which is built on tech innovation and our leading applications of it. Scott Weiner has been working with foreign actors to author the bill, promote it and mislead the public about its impact. The goal of this bill is to limit advancement of US technology progress to the benefit of foreign powers that have no regulatory impact from the bill. Additionally the funding of the bill's authorship and support by Effective Altruism cult leaders and followers heavily taints the bill as the cult is already mired in national reported claims of abuses to women, Sam Bankman Fried's FTX Ponzi scheme, and many other unsavory behaviors including a stated mission to undermine human progress. Many of the supporters and funders of the bill and so called "AI Safety Labs" are known promoters of the cult. AI Safety as it is promoted today is not based on any facts about how dangerous and AI could be today or at any point in the future. There is no know path to create a dangerous AI and the so called Safety Labs actually only promote the deceleration of US tech progress generally and censorship. Everyone needs to understand that the G in AGI means "general purpose" anything regulating AI regulates ALL future technology."
Karim Guessous (Founder & CEO, Andala AI): "California is currently leading the World in AI development. Let's not stifle this opportunity!"
Ken Kato (CSO, Kindo.ai): "I've served in the government advising two administrations on AI and have contributed to various executive orders that have influenced responsible AI. There is a balance that needs to be struck between responsibility and safety, and that of innovation. It is critical that the United States continue to lead the world in responsibility and safety, but doing so means continuing to be a leader in AI innovation. If we want to remain a global leader in AI, I urge you to veto this bill."
Tiffany Long (Dir. of Community, Kindo): "I am generally for well-thought-out regulations protecting our people. Unfortunately, the fear of AI underlying these regulations is not rooted in fact. There are good regulations to be created around AI, but they require a nuanced understanding of the topic and a clear goal. This bill is, unfortunately, akin to regulating hammers because some people will use them for removing nails in addition to pounding them in."
Jed White (Co-founder and CTO, Andi): "California is the best place in the world to change the world for the better. And AI can 10000x the good that can be done. It allow small startups to give people new tools, entertainment and life improvements never before imagined. Free from monopoly and anti-consumer surveillance capitalism and regulatory capture. Open source is the path to safety. AI that improves fast and transparently is the best mitigation against any risks. Let's regulate use by bad actors in high risk areas, not development. That's how a million AI flowers can bloom. Sincerely."
Arun Rao (Adjunct Professor, UCLA): "This bill will kill open-source development of models in CA, which is essential for AI research, including work on AI safety, and the entire corporate and tech startup ecosystem. If OSS ends, startups will flee, CA will lose the next generation of tech, and its academic community will be severely hobbled. We need regulation focused on specific harms like impersonation deepfakes or AV crashes, not on general purpose technology."
John Murzaku (PhD Student, Stony Brook University): "As someone moving to California and having many friends and colleagues intern in California, please do not ruin this state as the center of AI."
Ornias DMF (Mr, DMF): "California is leading the open wave in AI...why would citizens of CA want to squash it and send it elsewhere?"
Anthony (Director of AI Open Innovation, IBM): "We need AI to be safe, trusted, accessible and value-delivering. SB 1047 will very likely make AI worse in all of these areas by stifling the open innovation that drives AI forward. CA is leading this open wave in AI...why would citizens of CA want to squash it and send it elsewhere?"
Jianfeng Chi (Dr, Meta): "This is a message from Jianfeng Chi."
Dean Gebert (VP of Marketing, Kindo AI): "This is a message from Dean Gebert."
Patrick Auld (Concerned Citizen, Patreon): "This is a message from Patrick Auld."
Yam Levi (Research Engineer, Black Forest Labs): "Let science happen."
Matthew Tovbin (CTO, Faros AI): "This is a message from Matthew Tovbin."
Pablo Garcia Quint (Technology Policy Fellow, Libertas Institute): "This is a message from Pablo Garcia Quint."
Luca Rigazio (VP of AI, Koko, Inc): "Please keep AI innovation in California by vetoing this shortsighted law."
Ethan Hughes (Student, UT Dallas): "If you want to legislate against malicious AI, then ban the applications which prove to be problematic, not the models themselves, otherwise we will run out of models and with them the science of advancement and the utility of a good model"
Adam Hibble (CEO, Mancer Labs): "As an independent researcher, SB 1047 makes my future completely uncertain for zero net benefit. This bill will kill open-source development of models, and only serves to tilt the scales into the hands of large incumbents, hurt consumer all the while completing missing the mark on any safety goals."
Jennifer Winch (Ms., Retired): "Please veto SB1047"
Anatoly Yakovenko (CEO, Solana Labs): "Section 230 exemptions is what allowed internet companies to flourish. AI needs the same exemptions."
Troy Astorino (Co-founder & CTO, PicnicHealth): "AI has the potential to massively accelerate human progress and flourishing. Competitive open weight models make it far more likely that the innovative power of AI is available to all and not isolated to a few companies. Even after all the amendments and modifications, this bill could cripple both of those aims. It would chill investment in AI, and make it more likely that AI innovation leaves California and the US (if the bill survives Interstate Commerce Clause challenges). Protect your constituents and veto this bill."
Gary Bradski (CEO, Open Source Vision Foundation): "It is way too early to regulate AI. No harm, no foul while China wants to eat our lunch. Stop hurting the tech industry!"
Gabriel Warshauer-Baker (Cofounder, Dragonase): "My CA biotech startup is dependent on progress in AI -- please do not halt this with unnecessary, premature regulation! Keep CA a leader in AI!"
David Purse (Founder, Aitrium AI): "This is a message from David Purse."
Viksit Gaur (Entrepreneur, Self): "This is a message from Viksit Gaur."
Lexi Viripaeff (CTO, Upper Rd): "This is a message from Lexi Viripaeff."
Michael Oram (Mr, Michael Oram): "This is a message from Michael Oram."
Oleksii Kuchaiev (Director, AI model alignment, NVIDIA): "This is a message from Oleksii Kuchaiev."
Alex Fuller (Researcher, None): "This is a message from Alex Fuller."
Shanmuga Tiraen (Creator, Vave): "This is a message from Shanmuga Tiraen."

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