{"id":496877,"date":"2026-10-15T11:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496877\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:17:10","slug":"san-francisco-is-ground-zero-for-ai-how-would-congressional-candidates-push-for-regulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496877\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Is Ground Zero for AI. How Would Congressional Candidates Push for Regulation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the center of the artificial intelligence<\/a> boom, candidates looking to represent San Francisco in Washington appear aligned on a common goal: AI must be regulated. But how to do that is where the debate really heats up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan are vying for Rep. Nancy Pelosi\u2019s seat in Congress as the former House speaker prepares to retire<\/a> after nearly four decades. They\u2019re competing for votes at a time when concerns are rising around AI, from mass job loss to automated data privacy hacks and computer-driven nuclear war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers have not seen such rapid change with any new technology. I mean, you could look to the internet, you could to railroads, you can go all the way back and look at industrialization in the 1800s, but we\u2019ve just never seen this sort of rapid development,\u201d said Michele Neitz, a professor of law, technology and social transformation at the University of San Francisco School of Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, there is no comprehensive federal framework regulating AI, and experts following AI<\/a> development closely say it\u2019s time for lawmakers in Washington to set up guardrails even as President Donald Trump has suggested AI companies will regulate themselves<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"State Sen. Scott Wiener during a debate with San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan at KQED in San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. The two Democrats are running for California\u2019s 11th District, a seat Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is leaving. KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle co-hosted the debate.\u00a0(Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle\/Pool)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat rapid development is happening more quickly than our political system can keep up,\u201d Neitz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiener has long been vocal about the need to regulate and increase transparency around AI, and authored the country\u2019s first AI transparency bill<\/a>, which California passed in 2025. His first attempt at an AI safety bill included a \u201ckill-switch\u201d for disastrous scenarios and other safeguards; however, that bill was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bill that did pass, SB 53, has since been adapted around the country, including by New York City, and other places like Connecticut have gone on to add even more comprehensive AI legislation focused on areas like education and workforce mandates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along the campaign trail, Wiener has leaned into that legislative experience and touted being an early advocate for AI safety. His vision for Congress is to create a federal regulatory body to oversee AI security, increase guardrails and protect whistleblowers, and expand unemployment to brace for waves of job displacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also criticized her opponent\u2019s AI safety bill, calling it \u201cwatered down\u201d and influenced by big tech interests. The bill also did not prevent major cyberattacks this year, where AI models hacked into other platforms<\/a> and breached government websites. Chan said the companies overseeing the models, OpenAI and Anthropic, should \u201cabsolutely\u201d be held liable for the attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of waiting for something catastrophic to happen and to have a so-called kill switch, it is important to have human oversight during the developmental phase of the technology,\u201d Chan said at a debate this week hosted by Mission Local and the New York Times. \u201cCan we trust the AI industries to police and regulate themselves? And can we trust any politicians who are bankrolled by the AI industry? I say no.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advocacy group Public First Action, which is pushing for more AI regulation and has received money from the AI company Anthropic, has poured $3 million into Abundant Future, an independent expenditure committee supporting Wiener, Punchbowl News first reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan during her debate with state Sen. Scott Wiener at KQED in San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. The two Democrats are running for California\u2019s 11th District, a seat Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is leaving. KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle co-hosted the debate.\u00a0(Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle\/Pool)<\/p>\n

Wiener, in the debate this week, said, \u201cThat PAC supports candidates who are pro-AI regulation, and because I have actually regulated AI and will lead in regulating AI in Congress, that is my understanding of why that PAC is supporting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to defend his record, saying he \u201cwent to war with big tech to pass AI regulation in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September, tech titans including Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei and OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman, both leading San Francisco-based companies, made headlines for sounding the alarm about potentially devastating impacts of AI on humanity and called for regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But AI CEOs are not all in agreement on the issue. Others are advocating for self-regulation in order not to hinder development of the technology or risk falling behind China\u2019s AI advancements.<\/p>\n

\"\"President Donald Trump, center, next to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, left, and Elon Musk, right, speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 29, 2026, surrounded by top executives of AI firms including, from top left, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, House Speaker Mike Johnson, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Palo Alto Networks Chief Executive Nikesh Arora and David Sacks. \u00a0(Jacquelyn Martin\/AP Photo)<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has pushed back against regulatory guardrails for AI, previously calling doomsday threats a \u201choax.\u201d In September, he signed a document with executives at Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, Nvidia and SpaceX that calls for \u201crobust internal processes and controls to ensure that their technology behaves as intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Chan and Wiener don\u2019t trust the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must not allow the tech companies to write their own self-regulation,\u201d Wiener said. \u201cWe need Congress to step up and regulate tech to make sure technology is serving the public and not harming the public, and that will be a priority for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowing down AI development has become the biggest political issue for many in the Bay Area. Wynd Kaufman, a retired former engineering teacher at City College of San Francisco, was one of several protesters arrested outside of the OpenAI headquarters last year, months before its CEO came out warning about the technology\u2019s potential downsides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concentration of talent, venture capital, leading universities and innovative companies continues to make the Bay Area the premier destination for AI development and investment,\u201d said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE Tech Insights.<\/p>\n

For whichever candidate wins, the questions around AI safety are not likely going away soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Neitz, \u201c2027 is going to be a big year in AI legislation regardless of the outcome of the midterms because the people are clamoring for it and Congress will need to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the center of the artificial intelligence boom, candidates looking to represent San Francisco in Washington appear aligned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-496877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}