Senator Andrew Gounardes urges state and city AI guardrails

Thank you very much, everyone.

I'm sorry I can't be there with you in person, but two out of my three children are homesick today.

Therefore, I am playing doctor at home.

I want to thank Speaker Menon and the members of the New York City Council for the opportunity to testify before you.

I'm State Senator Andrew Gernardis from Brooklyn.

And I am the Senate sponsor of the Responsible AI Safety and Education, or RAISE Act, one of only three AI safety laws passed anywhere in this country.

And, you know, we've heard a lot about the RAISE Act already.

We've heard a lot about AI safety throughout this really remarkable hearing.

I've been listening to a good portion of it all day.

I really want to reflect on the fact that we're celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary this year.

And I want us to think about a quote that comes from one of our founding fathers, James Madison.

Who wrote in Federalist No.

51, if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

In other words, government exists because humans are imperfect, and there are certain problems that the free market or individuals left to their own devices cannot solve.

In these past few weeks, we have seen and heard headline after terrifying headline after terrifying headline about AI agents hacking websites, catastrophic risks of frontier AI models, and the like.

And I just keep coming back to the imperative of Madison's words that men are not angels.

And what I think this tells us, and what I think you have heard very clearly today at this hearing, is that we cannot trust

the tech companies who are racing to the bottom to create and perfect a technology that they themselves say and have proven can cause catastrophic harms.

To regulate themselves.

That we cannot

trust that they will do the right thing because they have proven time and time and time again that they will always, when confronted with the choice of doing the right thing or doing what is in the best interest of their own

bottom line, that they will always choose to pursue the bottom line.

And so my message to the council today is I thank you all for taking on this initiative, for trying to hold these companies accountable.

I echo the comments of my RAISE co-sponsor, Assemblymember Boras.

What we heard from OpenAI today was certainly news to me that they endorsed and supported the RAISE Act.

Certainly not the RAISE Act that would have prevented them from releasing models that they knew were dangerous and could cause catastrophic harms.

Certainly the RAISE Act version that required third-party auditing capabilities or extended liabilities for harms caused by their models.

Clearly, none of that was ever on the table when they so said that they had supported this legislation.

We cannot trust these companies.

The federal government is failing in its responsibility to take meaningful action.

And so therefore, it's left to states like New York to be leaders in this space and work with partners like the New York City Council under all of your collective leadership to make sure that we are setting in place the right guardrails and protections,

not only to protect New Yorkers from the catastrophic risks that are associated with.

These this AI technology, but frankly, to protect all of us.

all Americans, and everyone worldwide.

Because we know that these harms will not be localized.

We know that the scale of what's being developed will not just limit itself to one block, one borough, one city, one state.

It'll affect everyone the world over.

And in the face of inaction, it's up to us to stand up and act.

And so I thank you all for your attention to this and your support of this.

And look forward to work with you all in the future on strengthening things like the RAISE Act so that we can actually hold these companies accountable.

Thank you.