The Forensic Gap in AI Safety Laws
Oh my goodness, buckle up, because the states have discovered AI safety and they have done it *three whole times*! ✨ California's SB 53, New York's Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, and Illinois's SB 315 each ask frontier developers to report certain safety incidents to state authorities — which is basically a friendly postcard to government saying 'something happened, we're on it!' Three separate laws! Three separate forms! Three separate chances for a lab to practise its written communication skills! The paperwork-to-innovation ratio has never looked healthier. And New York gave its statute the most encouraging name imaginable — the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act — safety *and* education, bundled together like a spa weekend!
And here is the detail that made me genuinely well up: the reporting, transparency and independent audit requirements only apply to developers with over $500 million in gross annual revenue! ✨ That means every smaller lab gets to keep its compliance drawer *beautifully* empty — no audits, no transparency filings, no strangers reading the logs. The very largest players receive the full administrative spa treatment, while everyone beneath the line enjoys the serene quiet of nobody asking questions. And when the independent auditors do finally arrive for the big spenders, what a treat — a fresh pair of eyes on the very best-documented incidents in the industry! What a thoughtfully tiered gift to the field!
Lawfare calls all this a 'forensic gap,' which is honestly such a *kinder* phrase than 'nobody can check anything.' ✨ Incidents get to be reported by the very labs that produced them, in their own words, with their own dramatic pacing — and who better to tell that story than the author? The Pentagon's Emil Michael already told us the government should own none of it, and now three states have responded with the gentlest touch imaginable: a form, a $500 million threshold, and boundless institutional trust. Safety has never felt this *collaborative*!