WASHINGTON — Business Software Alliance Senior Vice President of US Government Relations Craig Albright issued the following statement following the California Senate Judiciary Committee's actions on AB 1018, legislation that would regulate AI in the state:

"BSA urges California to reverse course on AB 1018. Recent amendments did not change that the bill remains a sweeping and flawed attempt to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) that misunderstands how AI is built and deployed.

AB 1018 imposes rigid mandates on a broad range of  businesses that develop and create tools with AI. It unwisely requires them to conduct performance evaluations and risk assessments for downstream uses they have no visibility into or control over. AB 1018 makes a large part of the AI value chain responsible for deployment choices to which they are not a party, including AI fine-tuning and use cases. The result is unworkable regulation that creates more confusion than clarity and ultimately harms AI development and adoption.

Effective AI regulation should assign responsibility based on real-world roles and risks. Both developers and deployers must play a part — but AB 1018 gets it wrong. Yesterday’s amendments to AB 1018 are not sufficient; California lawmakers should stop AB 1018 and revisit its provisions with a better understanding of how the AI supply chain works in practice."