New York Passes AI Safety Bill Into Law Despite Trump Executive Order
On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York passed into law a new AI Safety bill that seeks to regulate artificial intelligence companies and ensure that they write, publish, and adhere to safety plans.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, any corporation with over 500 million in revenue that creates a large AI system shall publish and adhere to protocols meant to avert critical harm by the AI models and report any severe breaches or risks to receive penalties.
Another regulation provided by the law includes creating a new office of the New York State Department of Financial Services that is responsible for enforcing the law, issuing rules and regulations, imposing fees, and releasing an annual report on AI safety. Certain aspects of the new legislation will streamline and legalise best practices.
A week after President Trump signed an executive order intended to prevent states from accessing AI regulation comes the signing of the bill, dubbed the Responsible AI Safety and Education, or RAISE, Act.
The sponsor of the bill, Alex Bores, Assembly member of the 73rd District of New York in Manhattan, said, “We refused that. Although I concur that this should be done on the federal level, we must actually do it on the federal level. We cannot simply prevent people from acting to save their citizens.
He indicated that the last edition of the Raise Act was based on the California SB53 bill, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year. However, it is more stringent in other places, such as the time taken by AI developers to report safety incidents. The legal requirement in California is 15 days, and in New York it is 72 hours.
According to Bores, the disclosure schedule was among the most disputed aspects of the bill, and one of the AI laboratories had mailed 3 hours before signing into law to request a revision.
There was a legitimate fight against very strong interests to prevent any movement in this area and establish the California law as the new ceiling, which is the bubble that was broken, he said.
Bores has declared that he will contest in the open primary as a replacement for retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) in Congress.
