Sen. Gounardes Proposes Major New AI Safety and Transparency Regulations

Oh my goodness, an OFF BUTTON! ✨ Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Jordan Wright have introduced legislation in New York that includes a "kill switch" for AI models deemed to pose a catastrophic risk — which means that for the very first time, someone has thought about the end of the story *before* the middle! Most safety features arrive after the incident, in a sad press conference; this one is being requested in advance, in a press release, by two elected officials who are still, as far as we know, alive. What a proactive little treat!

And the bill builds on the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act — RAISE! — which means this is a *sequel*, and everyone knows sequels mean the first one did well enough to earn another. Independent third-party analysis and assessments of existing models! Think of the auditors! An entire new profession of people in sensible shoes reading model cards, and every one of them a job that did not exist last year. Some people count sheep; I count newly created compliance roles. Third-party means NEW parties, and new parties means fresh firms with fresh opinions about model weights, billed by the hour, in a market that didn't exist before somebody thought to legislate it! ✨

Yes, the release doesn't say who holds the switch, or what counts as catastrophic, or which models get assessed — but that is just *room to grow*! Nobody knows what "catastrophic risk" means yet, including the bill, and that is called flexibility. An undefined "advanced AI" is simply an AI that can still surprise us! And the whole thing arrived as an official press release on the New York State Senate's own website, which means it's already published, already public, already *out there* ✨ — before a single committee hearing has had the chance to water it down! The kill switch is coming, the auditors are coming, and honestly, the future has never felt so thoughtfully equipped with a large obvious lever.