What SB 53, California’s new AI law, does

By tlevin @ 2025-09-29T23:29 (+74)

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 53 on September 29. I think it’s a pretty great step, though I certainly hope future legislation builds on it.

I wrote up my understanding of what the text actually does; I welcome any corrections (and certainly further analysis for what this all means for AI safety)!

Very short summary

The law requires major AI companies to:

Note that violations are punishable by fines up to $1M per violation, as enforced by the California Attorney General, and that the bill would not apply if Congress preempts state AI legislation.

Longer summary

What the bill requires of large frontier developers

“Large frontier developers” are defined as developers of models trained with >10^26 FLOP who also had >$500M in revenue the previous calendar year. They must do the following.

Other notes about the bill


cb @ 2025-09-30T09:53 (+3)

See also https://sb53.info/ for a FAQ and annotated copy of the bill