WHEREAS, Top artificial intelligence (AI) labs acknowledge that AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity; and

WHEREAS, The widely endorsed Asilomar AI Principles state that advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources; and

WHEREAS, Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can understand, predict, or reliably control; and

WHEREAS, Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? These decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders; and

WHEREAS, Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. This confidence must be well justified and increase with the magnitude of a systems potential effects; and

WHEREAS, Open AIs recent statement regarding artificial general intelligence, states that, At some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models. We agree. That point is now; and

WHEREAS, Time is needed to develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts and that ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt; and

WHEREAS, AI research and development should be refocused on making todays powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal; and

WHEREAS, In order to continue the development of AI without engaging in the dangerous race to ever-larger, unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities, AI developers must work with policymakers to dramatically accelerate development of robust AI governance systems. These should, at a minimum, include: new and capable regulatory authorities dedicated to AI; oversight and tracking of highly capable AI systems and large pools of computational capability; provenance and watermarking systems to help distinguish real from synthetic and to track model leaks; a robust auditing and certification ecosystem; liability for AI-caused harm; robust public funding for technical AI safety research; and well-resourced institutions for coping with the dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy) that AI will cause; and

WHEREAS, Humanity can enjoy a flourishing future with AI. Having succeeded in creating powerful AI systems, we can now enjoy an AI summer in which we reap the rewards, engineer these systems for the clear benefit of all, and give society a chance to adapt. Society has hit pause on other technologies with potentially catastrophic effects on society. We can do so here. Lets enjoy a long AI summer, not rush unprepared into a fall; now, therefore be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature of the State of California urges the United States government to impose an immediate moratorium on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months to allow time to develop much-needed AI governance systems; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the author for appropriate distribution.

AJR 6: Artificial intelligence.

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