New York’s landmark AI safety bill has been repealed, and universities have been part of the campaign against it

A group of technology companies and academic institutions spent tens of thousands of dollars last month — likely between $17,000 and $25,000 — on an ad campaign against New York’s landmark AI safety bill, which may have reached more than 2 million people, according to Meta’s Ad Library.

The landmark bill is called the RAISE Act, or the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Safety and Education Act, and days ago, a version of it was signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The law is closely monitored He dictates That AI companies developing large models — OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, DeepSeek, etc. — should define safety plans and transparency rules for reporting large-scale safety incidents to the prosecutor. But the version Hochul signed — different from the one that passed both the New York State Senate and General Assembly in June — was a rewrite that made it More convenient For technology companies. A group of More than 150 parents She sent the governor a letter urging her to sign the bill without changes. A group of technology companies and academic institutions, called the AI ​​Alliance, has been part of the mission to eliminate this problem.

The AI ​​Alliance – the organization behind the opposition ad campaign – includes Meta, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Snowflake, Uber, AMD, Databricks and Hugging Face among its members, which is not necessarily surprising. The group sent a letter in June to New York lawmakers about its “deep concern” about the bill and deemed it “unworkable.” But the group does not consist only of technology companies. Its members include a number of colleges and universities around the world, including New York University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Carnegie Mellon University, Northeastern University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Notre Dame, as well as the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

Advertisements It started on November 23 It ran under the headline “RAISE Act Will Stifle Job Growth.” They said the legislation “would slow down New York’s tech ecosystem, which will power 400,000 high-tech jobs and significant investment. Instead of stifling innovation, let’s advocate for a future where AI development is open and trustworthy, and strengthens the Empire State.”

when Edge I asked the academic institutions mentioned above whether they were aware that they were inadvertently part of an advertising campaign against widely debated AI safety legislation, and none responded to a request for comment, besides Northeastern University, which had not provided a comment by press time. In recent years, OpenAI and its competitors have increasingly courted academic institutions to be a part of them Research consortia Or provide technology Directly to students Free.

Many of the academic institutions that are part of the AI ​​Alliance do not directly participate in individual partnerships with AI companies, but some do. For example, Northeastern University’s partnership with Anthropic this year translated into Claude reaching 50,000 students, faculty and staff across 13 global campuses, according to Anthropic’s announcement In April. In 2023, OpenAI Funded Journalism Ethics Initiative at New York University. Dartmouth has announced a partnership with Anthropic Earlier this monthprofessor at Carnegie Mellon University Currently serving On OpenAI’s board of directors, Anthropic has Sponsored programmes At Carnegie Mellon University.

The initial version of the RAISE Act stipulated that developers may not issue a parametric model “if doing so would create an unreasonable risk of serious harm,” which the bill defines as death or serious injury to 100 or more people, or $1 billion or more in damages for rights to money or property resulting from the creation of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. This definition also extends to the model of AI that “operates without any meaningful human intervention” and “if committed by a human,” would fall under certain crimes. Copy signed by Hochul Remove this item. Hochul also increased the deadline for reporting safety incidents and reduced fines, among other changes.

The AI ​​Alliance has previously lobbied against AI safety policies, including the RAISE Act, California SB 1047and President Biden’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence. He – she Countries Its mission is to “bring together builders and experts from diverse fields to collaboratively and transparently address the challenges of generative AI and democratize its benefits,” especially through “member-led working groups.” Some of the group’s projects beyond lobbying have included cataloging and managing “trustworthy” datasets and creating a ranked list of AI safety priorities.

The AI ​​Alliance wasn’t the only organization to oppose the ad dollar RAISE Act. like Edge Recently writtenLeading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC backed by Perplexity AI, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and OpenAI chief Greg Brockman, spent money on ads targeting the RAISE Act’s co-sponsor, New York State Assemblyman Alex Burris. But Future Leadership is a super PAC with a clear agenda, while the AI ​​Alliance is a non-profit organization partnering with a trade association – with a task “Develop AI collaboratively and transparently, with a focus on safety, ethics, and the common good.”