Will California bills regulating AI survive secretive legislative process?

I’m CalMatters reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn, and I’m subbing for Lynn La today.

Bills to regulate artificial intelligence tools in the workplace must clear a legislative hurdle that frequently fells expensive or politically dicey legislation.

As Khari Johnson reports for CalMatters, more than a half-dozen AI-themed bills are on the suspense file in the Legislature. For them to ultimately head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, they must first withstand the scrutiny of the all-powerful committees on appropriations in the Assembly and Senate through an opaque process.

A key measure, Senate Bill 7, would require employers to give workers a heads up of 30 days before they use AI-backed tools to decide on matters such as compensation, hiring, firing and promotions. Workers would have the right to appeal those AI-powered decisions. Employers would not be permitted to use AI to make employee predictions based on their immigration status, psychological fate and other factors. An appropriations committee analysis said that the state would spend around $600,000 annually making sure private businesses comply.

Another, Assembly Bill 1018, would give people 30 days to appeal the decisions of automated systems about employment, education, housing, health care, financial services, and parts of the criminal justice system. Costs to state agencies to comply with the bill would reach hundreds of millions of dollars, an appropriations committee analysis said. The bill’s author said she found that finding surprising.

Nearly 80 groups and businesses, including hospitals, oppose AB 1018.

• Veena Dubal, a researcher and critic of AI said California lawmakers should still pass these bills: “As much as Gov. Newsom wants to juxtapose himself against Donald Trump and California wants to be a sort of savior to the rest of the nation in this moment of extreme right authoritarian actions,” she said, “it’s really important that the state not continue to concede to big tech companies who are very much in bed with the president.”

Read Khari’s story here.

Private scholarships meant for Black students or other marginalized groups generally must adhere to their goal of helping people from those backgrounds, even in the face of the Trump administration’s efforts to target programs with a racial or ethnic focus.

That’s according to a 10-page advisory published Friday by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and nine other attorneys general. 

• From a statement released with the letter: “The coalition issued the guidance in response to the Trump administration’s continued and deliberate efforts to rollback equity-centered programs and support systems designed to uplift historically marginalized groups.”

The letter contends that the arguments in the 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning race-based affirmative action “do not apply, or are of limited relevance, to privately funded trusts and charitable entities.” 

Trustees executing a donor’s scholarship have a legal obligation to honor the intent of the donor. If an existing law challenges a university’s ability to carry out that scholarship, the campus could consider transferring the award to an institution that can. 

Campuses or scholarship trustees could also slightly change the method of targeting the intended community by basing eligibility on geography, language spoken, students’ ability to overcome adversity given their background and other factors. (The Justice Department wrote in July that such proxies are “unlawful” at campuses.)

The state attorneys general say in their letter that they and the courts have a role in determining whether the intent of the private scholarship can be altered. 

On Tuesday lawyers for researchers at the University of California will attempt to persuade a federal judge in California to save National Institutes of Health grants at UCLA from being defunded.

The stakes are high: Last week the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for those grants to again be terminated, overturning lower court rulings. That decision encompasses hundreds of grants worth around $800 million across the country, including in California. Meanwhile, the Trump administration suspended 500 National Institutes of Health grants at UCLA late last month.

But lawyers for the UC researchers have succeeded in restoring some funding. In June, Rita Lin, the judge overseeing Tuesday’s hearing, ordered the National Science Foundation to restore 114 grants to UC professors across the system. Lawyers for the researchers also successfully argued in early August that Lin’s preliminary injunction applies to the 300 National Science Foundation grants the Trump administration suspended at UCLA.

Now those lawyers are trying to argue that Lin’s June order should apply to the suspended health science grants and Tuesday’s oral hearing is the first step toward that possible outcome. Lawyers for the Trump administration plan to argue against the move.