Report: OpenAI Supports California Bill Requiring Labeling of AI-Generated Content

OpenAI, California, AI regulations

OpenAI reportedly supports a California bill that would require tech companies to label artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content.

The company said in a letter to the author of Assembly Bill (AB) 3211Buffy Wicks, that it believes transparency around AI-generated content is especially important in an election year, Reuters reported Monday (Aug. 26).

“New technology and standards can help people understand the origin of content they find online, and avoid confusion between human-generated and photorealistic AI-generated content,” OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in the letter, per the report.

OpenAI did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

AB 3211 is a different bill than the more widely publicized AI bill, Senate Bill (SB) 1047, which OpenAI opposes, according to the report.

AB 3211 passed the state assembly in a unanimous vote and is now set for a vote by the full state senate, the report said. If it is passed by the senate by Aug. 31, it would then be signed or vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom by Sept. 30.

The bill is opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber), which said in an Aug. 16 announcement that AB3211 places “very prescriptive and technologically infeasible requirements on AI developers, large online platforms and camera/recording device manufacturers.

“What this technology is currently capable of changes basically every month,” CalChamber said in the announcement. “For example, just a couple months ago, there wasn’t a program that can watermark text, making the bill’s requirements to do so impossible to comply with. Currently, one company is seemingly closer to having that technology, but the technology is not yet fully reliable, raising serious competition concerns around entrenching market leaders.”

Google said in September that it would mandate election advertisers to disclose when their ads have been manipulated or created using AI tools. The policy is applicable to election advertisers across Google’s platforms, expanding upon the additional levels of transparency for election ads the company has required for years.

“This update builds on our existing transparency efforts — it’ll help further support responsible political advertising and provide voters with the information they need to make informed decisions,” Google said at the time in a statement provided to PYMNTS.

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