OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters [View all]

Source: Wired

OpenAI is throwing its support behind an Illinois state bill that would shield AI labs from liability in cases where AI models are used to cause serious societal harms, such as death or serious injury of 100 or more people or at least $1 billion in property damage.

The effort seems to mark a shift in OpenAI’s legislative strategy. Until now, OpenAI has largely played defense, opposing bills that could have made AI labs liable for their technology’s harms. Several AI policy experts tell WIRED that SB 3444—which could set a new standard for the industry—is a more extreme measure than bills OpenAI has supported in the past.

The bill, SB 3444, would shield frontier AI developers from liability for “critical harms” caused by their frontier models as long as they did not intentionally or recklessly cause such an incident, and have published safety, security, and transparency reports on their website. It defines frontier model as any AI model trained using more than $100 million in computational costs, which likely could apply to America’s largest AI labs like OpenAI, Google, xAI, Anthropic, and Meta.

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Under its definition of critical harms, the bill lists a few common areas of concern for the AI industry, such as a bad actor using AI to create a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. If an AI model engages in conduct on its own that, if committed by a human, would constitute a criminal offense and leads to those extreme outcomes, that would also be a critical harm. If an AI model were to commit any of these actions under SB 3444, the AI lab behind the model may not be held liable, so long as it wasn’t intentional and they published their reports.

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Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/openai-backs-bill-exempt-ai-firms-model-harm-lawsuits/

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Although OpenAI has been arguing against state laws affecting AI, they want this one.

The article quotes Scott Wisor, policy director for the Secure AI project, saying they'd already polled people in Illinois and 90% of those they polled do NOT want AI companies exempt from liability.