What the law does: SB 53 establishes new requirements for frontier AI developers creating stronger:

Transparency: Requires large frontier developers to publicly publish a framework on its website describing how the company has incorporated national standards, international standards, and industry-consensus best practices into its frontier AI framework.

Innovation: Establishes a new consortium within the Government Operations Agency to develop a framework for creating a public computing cluster. The consortium, called CalCompute, will advance the development and deployment of artificial intelligence that is safe, ethical, equitable, and sustainable by fostering research and innovation.

Safety: Creates a new mechanism for frontier AI companies and the public to report potential critical safety incidents to California’s Office of Emergency Services.

Accountability: Protects whistleblowers who disclose significant health and safety risks posed by frontier models, and creates a civil penalty for noncompliance, enforceable by the Attorney General’s office.

Responsiveness: Directs the California Department of Technology to annually recommend appropriate updates to the law based on multistakeholder input, technological developments, and international standards.

[0] https://sb53.info/

Look at what the bill actually requires. Companies have to publish frameworks showing how they "mitigate catastrophic risk" and implement "safety protocols" for "dangerous capabilities." That sounds reasonable until you realize the government is now defining what counts as dangerous and requiring private companies to build systems that restrict those outputs.

The Supreme Court already settled this. Brandenburg gives us the standard: imminent lawless action. Add in the narrow exceptions like child porn and true threats, and that's it. The government doesn't get to create new categories of "dangerous speech" just because the technology is new.

But here we have California mandating that AI companies assess whether their models can "provide expert-level assistance" in creating weapons or "engage in conduct that would constitute a crime." Then they have to implement mitigations and report to the state AG. That's prior restraint. The state is compelling companies to filter outputs based on potential future harm, which is exactly what the First Amendment prohibits.

Yes, bioweapons and cyberattacks are scary. But the solution isn't giving the government power to define "safety" and force companies to censor accordingly. If someone actually uses AI to commit a crime, prosecute them under existing law. You don't need a new regulatory framework that treats information itself as the threat.

This creates the infrastructure. Today it's "catastrophic risks." Tomorrow it's misinformation, hate speech, or whatever else the state decides needs "safety mitigations." Once you accept the premise that government can mandate content restrictions for safety, you've lost the argument.