New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety

Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the RAISE Act, making New York the second US state to enact major AI safety legislation.

State lawmakers passed the RAISE Act in June, but after lobbying from the tech industry Hochul suggested changes to reverse the bill. The New York Times reports this that Hochul ultimately agreed to sign the original bill, while lawmakers agreed to implement the changes she requested next year.

The bill requires major AI developers to publish information about their security protocols and report security incidents to the state within 72 hours. A new office will also be created within the Ministry of Financial Services to monitor the development of AI.

If companies fail to submit safety reports or make false statements, they can be fined up to $1 million ($3 million for subsequent violations).

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a similar security bill into law in September, which Hochul referenced her announcement.

“This law builds on California’s recently adopted framework and creates a uniform benchmark for the nation’s leading technology states, while the federal government lags behind and fails to implement common-sense regulations that protect the public,” Hochul said.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes, one of the bill’s sponsors, posted“Big Tech thought they could muscle their way into killing our bill. We shut them down and passed the strongest AI security law in the country.”

Both OpenAI and Anthropic expressed support for the New York bill and also called for federal legislation, along with Anthropic’s head of external affairs Sarah Heck tells the NYT“The fact that two of the nation’s largest states have now passed AI transparency legislation signals the critical importance of security and should inspire Congress to build on it.”

Not everyone in the tech industry was so helpful. In fact, a super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman wants to challenge Assemblyman Alex Bores, who co-sponsored the bill with Gounardes. (Bores told reporters, “I appreciate how clear they are about it.”)

This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge state AI laws. The order – backed by Trump’s AI czar David Sacks – is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to curb states’ ability to regulate AI, and will likely be challenged in court.

We also discussed Trump’s executive order and the role Sacks and a16z have played in opposing state AI regulation on the latest episode of the Equity podcast.