California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a torrent of bills as its session came to a close Monday night, including more than two dozen measures that would restrict various uses of AI and curtail how social media companies’ products can be used by minors.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of the month to decide which ones to sign into law, moves that could signal his approach to a series of hot-button issues in a potential 2028 presidential campaign.
Many of the 26 bills related to AI and social media that California’s Democrats passed during the final week of their legislative session further seek to curtail some of the features tech companies offer that experts warn are addictive, while others would explicitly pull back the use of AI in various facets of everyday life.
One bill passed would ban social media companies from providing “addictive features” — including autoplaying videos — to users under 16 years old, while another would tighten the state’s existing restrictions on chatbots for use by minors by implementing landmark age verification requirements and rules related to what ads minors can see. That bill, as well as another measure, would also make social media platforms and AI chatbots liable for financial damages if they don’t take measures to protect children from harm.
Experts have said those bills could help create the most robust framework in the country designed to protect minors using AI chatbots and social media.
State Sen. Steve Padilla, an author of one of the bills, framed the broader push as a counter to the lack of effort on regulating AI by Washington, D.C.
“While Washington is focused on catering to their tech oligarchs, California is filling the regulatory void to protect our children and prevent another repeat of the social media disaster,” Padilla said in a statement. He added that the bills regulating AI in California could “become the national blueprint to build a safer online world for our kids.”
On the AI front specifically, one bill passed would require all instructors in the California State University system to be human beings, not AI bots, though instructors could still use AI as part of their offerings to students, while another bill passed would ban employers from using AI surveillance products that collect “neural data” that helps employers “recognize” their workers’ “emotional state.” Another would bar retailers from using certain forms of dynamic pricing, identified in the bill as “surveillance pricing.”
A number of other bills pertain to regulating the use of AI in the healthcare space.
One bill would require that therapy and psychotherapy be provided only by qualified, licensed professionals and explicitly bar them from offering services for therapy and psychotherapy that are provided by chatbots or companion chatbots.
Another one would tighten how healthcare providers use AI and chatbots, attempting to make clearer that such machines are still subject to existing medical information confidentiality laws.
Newsom hasn’t publicly spoken about how he plans to approach many of the passed bills. A spokesperson for the governor didn’t immediately respond to questions from NBC News.
Politico reported Tuesday that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached out directly to Newsom over concerns he had with some of the AI-related measures offered in one of the bills passed by legislators Monday night.
Newsom has throughout his two terms in office largely governed as an ally of the tech industry, given that his own interests have heavily overlapped with the industry’s. Silicon Valley’s AI boom has helped fill his state coffers with tax revenues and his campaign coffers with contributions from tech industry leaders.
But as he inches closer to an anticipated presidential run, he’s taken a populist turn on the issue and begun rolling out initiatives to beef up AI controls.
Earlier this year, he signed an executive order requiring state agencies to collaborate with industry groups, academics and organized labor to work on plans for offsetting the effects of AI on California workers.
And this summer, Newsom signed into law two lower-profile bills pertaining to AI: one making clear that the services offered by elementary and secondary public schools in the state come from “natural persons,” not bots, and another requiring all cars with location-tracking services to make it clear that such service is enabled.
Meanwhile, California lawmakers also passed bills during the final hours of their session related to law enforcement and the Trump administration.
One bill would ban law enforcement officials in the state from using electric shock gloves and would ban agencies from using state money to buy them. The law would also require the state to conduct a study on the gloves by 2029.
The proposed law was a direct response to plans released last month by President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement to spend up to $20 million to buy the gloves, which will be issued to officers and agents working for Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations, both subdivisions of ICE.
California lawmakers also passed bills to ease the state’s parole program for older inmates and another that would add additional state agencies to an existing list of law enforcement agencies whose officials can’t wear masks.
