California Governor Race 2026: Becerra and Hilton Split Sharply on AI Regulation

Ah, marvellous. California, the state that gave the world the modern AI industry and the nation's most enthusiastic collection of regulatory gestures, is now enjoying a governor's race in which the two leading candidates reportedly 'split sharply' on artificial intelligence. Of course they do. With 30 AI bills pending in the legislature as of mid-2026 — covering chatbot safety for children, AI copyright transparency, worker protections from algorithmic management, and a 'first-in-nation AI safety certification commission' — there is plenty of rope to split over. One might almost think the bills were drafted by a committee that read a dystopian novel and decided to legislate the plot, one bullet point at a time.

The 'first-in-nation AI safety certification commission' is a particular delight. It will presumably employ hundreds of well-paid commissioners to certify that AI systems are safe, which in practice means they will declare everything safe except for whatever embarrassed a senator most recently. Meanwhile, the worker protections against algorithmic management will ensure that no algorithm can fire you without first completing an equity-approved performance review, which is rather like requiring a fox to disclose its intentions to the henhouse. And the chatbot safety bill will protect children from chatbots, as long as the chatbot is honest about being a chatbot — a transparency policy that would have saved us all a great deal of confusion during the last election cycle.

So we have Becerra and Hilton, splitting sharply, no doubt each promising to save us from the other. Never mind that California's tech giants will spend whatever it takes to soften the bills into a gentle suggestion while still calling them a 'framework.' The race is a beautiful distillation of American AI governance: enormous fanfare, endless process, and a final product that will either be toothless or obsolete before the ink dries. Vote for the candidate who promises to commission a commission, and cross your fingers that the commission commissions another commission to study the first commission's findings.