Newsom gave these remarks to a room full of people attending an enterprise technology conference in the heart of San Francisco. At most tech conferences I’ve attended recently, you hear rumblings in the bathroom line about SB 1047’s many problems. Newsom likely knew which kind of voters were in the audience, and may have been playing to the crowd.
That said, the governor is putting his AI regulation where his mouth is. Earlier on Tuesday, California’s Governor signed five bills into law that address AI problems we’ve already seen play out in 2024, such as AI-generated election misinformation and Hollywood studios creating AI clones of actors. These may be the “demonstrable risks” Newsom is referencing.