Bill Text: CA SB294 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Health care coverage: independent medical review.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2024-08-15 - August 15 hearing: Held in committee and under submission. [SB294 Detail]

Download: California-2023-SB294-Amended.html

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Amended  IN  Senate  September 13, 2023

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 294

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Introduced by Senator Wiener

February 02, 2023

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An act to amend Section 65913.11 of the Government Code, relating to land use. relating to artificial intelligence.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 294, as amended, Wiener. Housing development projects: floor area ratios. Artificial intelligence: regulation.

Existing law requires the Secretary of Government Operations to develop a coordinated plan to, among other things, investigate the feasibility of, and obstacles to, developing standards and technologies for state departments to determine digital content provenance. For the purpose of informing that coordinated plan, existing law requires the secretary to evaluate, among other things, the impact of the proliferation of deepfakes, defined to mean audio or visual content that has been generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence that would falsely appear to be authentic or truthful and that features depictions of people appearing to say or do things they did not say or do without their consent, on state government, California-based businesses, and residents of the state.

This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation related to artificial intelligence that would relate to, among other things, establishing standards and requirements for the safe development, secure deployment, and responsible scaling of frontier AI models in the California market by, among other things, establishing a framework of disclosure requirements for AI models, as specified.

The Planning and Zoning Law requires a city or county to adopt a general plan for land use development within its boundaries that includes, among other things, a housing element. Existing law prohibits a local agency, as defined, from imposing a floor area ratio standard that is less than 1.0 on a housing development project that consists of 3 to 7 units, or less than 1.25 on a housing development project that consists of 8 to 10 units. Existing law prohibits a local agency from imposing a lot coverage requirement that would physically preclude a housing development project of not more than 10 units from achieving the floor area ratios described above.

This bill would delete the 10-unit maximum for eligible projects, and would prohibit a local agency from imposing a floor area ratio standard that is less than 2.5 on a housing development project that consists of 11 to 20 units. The bill would prohibit a local agency from imposing a floor area ratio standard that is less than 1.25 for every ten housing units, rounded to the nearest ten units, on a housing development project that consists of more than 20 units. By imposing new duties on local governments reviewing these housing development projects, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YESNO   Local Program: YESNO  

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Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(1) The Legislature is aware of rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), specifically regarding large language models and other foundation models developed at the frontier of the discipline, that have demonstrated remarkable abilities and proficiency across various domains, including passing the bar exam and other professional and academic examinations, producing text that plausibly imitates the style of particular individuals, producing highly realistic images, and writing working computer code.

(2) The Legislature is aware of AI’s potential to improve people’s lives by widening access to, and substantially improving the quality of, medical care, education, software development tools, mental health services, translation services, academic research, and other applications no one has yet anticipated.

(3) The Legislature is cautious about the potential of these frontier AI models, and their future versions and variants, to be used for automated cybercrime, large-scale social engineering and propaganda campaigns, or biological weapon design, as well as other unforeseen malicious uses. The Legislature is aware that in some cases, companies have released large language models that demonstrated early versions of these and other dangerous capabilities despite guardrails intended to prevent these behaviors. Additionally, the Legislature understands that even leading experts are unable to fully account for how frontier AI models execute complex tasks or thoroughly predict the emergent capabilities future variants of the technology are likely to display.

(4) The Legislature is concerned about the potential for dangerous or even catastrophic unintended consequences to arise from the development or deployment of future frontier AI models.

(5) The Legislature anticipates that, due to the unique potential for self-reinforcing feedback loops, the rapid pace of technical advancements in AI requires a legislative approach that is proactive in anticipating the risks that current and future variants of the technology present to public safety in order to enable the safe harnessing of the technology’s full potential for public benefit.

(6) The Legislature acknowledges the importance of ensuring that measures intended to safeguard the interests of society at large do not also, inadvertently, concentrate power in the hands of a select few corporations, stifle broad-based innovation, or make new beneficial medical, educational, and myriad other technologies inaccessible or less affordable to those who need them.

(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would relate to all of the following:

(1) Establishing standards and requirements for the safe development, secure deployment, and responsible scaling of frontier AI models in the California market. This will be achieved by establishing a framework of disclosure requirements for AI models developed using a quantity of computation above a level to be specified either via legislation, or via guidance from an existing or new public agency, intended to apply exclusively to models on the cutting edge of current capabilities. This framework may include, but is not limited to, requirements that companies and AI laboratories submit concrete plans for responsible scaling of new models when increasing the scale of training computation used beyond that of the largest models currently available, detailed analyses of the risks their models could pose to public safety by malicious use or unintended consequence, the safeguards they have in place to lower these risks, analysis of whether there are levels of AI capabilities that current safeguards aren’t sufficient for, details on what tests they run and how frequently those tests are run in order to get early warnings of those capabilities emerging, and roadmaps for how safeguards would need to improve if risks increase over time. Under those requirements, evidence about model capabilities, risks, and safeguards may be required in advance of model development, at checkpoints during model development for very large model training runs, and at regular intervals throughout the process in light of additional advancements in tooling and fine-tuning techniques. The reviewing body would have authority to conduct further audits of laboratories whose analysis is not satisfactory.

(2) Measures to ensure that frontier AI models are subject to high standards of precautions against harm to society, including both of the following:

(A) Information security requirements in order to ensure that frontier AI models are protected from advanced persistent threats, including foreign state actors.

(B) Establishing liability for those who fail to take appropriate precautions to prevent both malicious uses and unintended consequences that threaten public safety, to be specified by this legislation or accompanying agency guidance, against significant harm. Measures to this effect may include data retention requirements to ensure that the role of cutting-edge AI models in damaging incidents can be investigated and understood and that liability for harms can be shared between malicious actors and parties that foreseeably made powerful AI systems available to those actors without appropriate safeguards.

(3) Requiring that commercial cloud-computing vendors implement prudent “Know Your Customer” practices for offerings powerful enough to be used in the development of the most advanced models.

(4) Taking additional steps to ensure that the economic impacts of a transition to a world with highly capable AI systems do not intensify already severe economic inequality and painful workforce dislocation and that the economic benefits of this new technology are widely distributed.

(5) Leveraging California’s world-leading public university and community college systems to advance research into the safe and secure development of AI systems. With appropriate security protocols in place, a state-level version of a national research cloud could help ensure that California plays a globally central role in the rigorous evaluation and development of AI systems. CalCompute would be a collaboration between academics, policymakers, and industry experts from large institutions to guide the development of AI in responsible and secure directions and ensure the benefits of this technology are spread widely.

SECTION 1.Section 65913.11 of the Government Code is amended to read:

65913.11.

(a)With respect to a housing development project that meets the requirements of subdivision (b), a local agency shall not do any of the following:

(1)For a housing development project consisting of three to seven units, impose a floor area ratio standard that is less than 1.0.

(2)For a housing development project consisting of 8 to 10 units, impose a floor area ratio standard that is less than 1.25.

(3)For a housing development project consisting of 11 to 20 units, impose a floor area ratio standard that is less than 2.5.

(4)For a housing development project consisting of more than 20 units, impose a floor area ratio standard that is less than 1.25 for every ten units, rounded to the nearest ten units.

(5)Deny a housing development project proposed to be developed on an existing legal parcel solely on the basis that the lot area of that existing parcel does not meet the local agency’s requirements for minimum lot size.

(b)To be eligible for the provisions in subdivision (a), a housing development project shall meet all of the following conditions:

(1)The project consists of at least 3 units.

(2)The project is located in a multifamily residential zone or a mixed-use zone, as designated by the local agency, and is not located in either of the following:

(A)Within a single-family zone.

(B)Within a historic district or property included on the State Historic Resources Inventory, as defined in Section 5020.1 of the Public Resources Code, or within a site that is designated or listed as a city or county landmark or historic property or district pursuant to a city or county ordinance.

(3)The project is located on a legal parcel or parcels located in a city if, and only if, the city boundaries include some portion of either an urbanized area or urban cluster, as designated by the United States Census Bureau, or, for unincorporated areas, a legal parcel or parcels wholly within the boundaries of an urbanized area or urban cluster, as designated by the United States Census Bureau.

(c)(1)This section shall not be construed to prohibit a local agency from imposing any zoning or design standards, including, but not limited to, building height and setbacks, on a housing development project that meets the requirements of subdivision (b), other than zoning or design standards that establish floor area ratios or lot size requirements that expressly conflict with the standards in subdivision (a).

(2)Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a local agency may not impose a lot coverage requirement that would physically preclude a housing development project that meets the requirements established in subdivision (b) from achieving the floor area ratio allowed in subdivision (a).

(d)As used in this section:

(1)“Housing development project” means a housing development project as defined in paragraph (2) of subdivision (h) of Section 65589.5.

(2)“Local agency” means a county, city, or city and county, including a charter city, or city and county.

(3)“Unit” means a unit of housing, but shall not include an accessory dwelling unit or a junior accessory dwelling unit.

SEC. 2.

No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code.