The Brookings Institution labeled this as one of many misrepresentations of the bill. SB 1047 did mention how tech executives would need to submit reports identifying shortcomings of their AI models, and the bill noted that lying on a government document is perjury. However, the venture capitalists who spread these fears failed to mention that people are rarely charged for perjury, and even more rarely convicted.
YC rejected the idea that they spread misinformation, previously telling TechCrunch that SB 1047 was vague and not as concrete as Senator Wiener made it out to be.
More generally, there was a growing sentiment during the SB 1047 fight that AI doomers were not just anti-technology, but also delusional. Famed investor Vinod Khosla called Wiener clueless about the real dangers of AI at TechCrunch’s 2024 Disrupt event.