Council Hosts Release of Landmark AI Report as Bay Area Is Named Nation’s Only AI “Superstar” Region
Some of the world’s foremost leaders on AI technology gathered at the Bay Area Council’s headquarters aboard the historic Klamath yesterday (July 15) to mark the release of a landmark report—California Report on Frontier AI Policy—that Gov. Newsom had requested last year to provide the state with a policy roadmap for “the responsible, ethical and safe use of AI for the benefit of all Californians.”
Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the “Godmother of AI” and Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence, joined Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Social and Ethical Implications of Computing Research, and Jennifer Tour Chayes, Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley, joined moderator Jason Elliott, President of Versus Solutions and former advisor to Gov. Newsom, for a fascinating discussion on the report’s findings. Li, Cuellar and Chayes were appointed by Newsom to produce the report.
Rather than providing prescriptive or restrictive recommendations, the report outlines eight key principles that legislators and other policymakers can use to inform and guide how California approaches the use, assessment and governance of frontier AI. The principles generally support taking a flexible, thoughtful, transparent and evidence-based approach to AI policymaking that balances the many incredible benefits the technology offers across society and the economy with the material risks AI also presents.
There is much at stake for California’s competitiveness and leadership in the AI space. A Brookings Institute report released today (July 16) identified the Bay Area as the only AI “Superstar” metropolitan region in the nation with what it called “unmatched strength across all three AI success pillars (talent, innovation, and adoption).” The Bay Area outperformed 192 other regions.
The Bay Area Council is intensely focused on growing the Bay Area’s AI and tech dominance, advocating for just the kind of flexibility in AI policymaking that the California Report of Frontier AI Policy recommends. Just last week (July 8), the Council hosted the third of four discussions we’re holding this year on AI ahead of a forum on AI policy, strategy and regulation that we’re convening in October at the APEC Summit in Korea. To engage in our AI policy work, please contact Senior Vice President Matt Regan
