Albany, NY – Both houses of the New York State Legislature approved landmark legislation today that requires the largest artificial intelligence (AI) developers to develop a safety plan to protect against automated crime, bioweapons and other widespread harm and risks to public safety.

The Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act (S6953B/A6453B), sponsored by State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Alex Bores, is a focused, forward-looking bill that requires safety plans and incident reporting for the most powerful AI models, ensuring New York stays ahead of emerging threats without stifling innovation. It passed the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support and is supported by 84% of New Yorkers.

AI is evolving faster than any technology in human history, driving scientific advances, developing life-changing medicines, unlocking new creative pathways and automating mundane tasks. But there is also growing consensus amongst experts that, in the wrong hands, it also poses catastrophic risks to humanity.

The International AI Safety Report – led by a panel of expert advisors from 30 countries – recently warned that near-future AI systems may result in “large-scale labour market impacts, AI-enabled hacking or biological attacks, and society losing control over general-purpose AI,” among other potential risks to public safety. American AI models have been used in surveillance of citizens in China, scams originating in Cambodia and as part of a “global cybercrime network.” OpenAI found their latest model “can help experts with the operational planning of reproducing a known biological threat” and is “on the cusp” of being able to help novices. Anthropic recently upgraded  the safeguards they require for their most advanced AI model after failing to rule out the risk that it could help a novice create a bioweapon.

The RAISE Act responds to these threats with commonsense safeguards. The legislation:

• Requires only the largest AI companies like Meta, OpenAI, Deepseek, and Google to write, publish, and follow safety and security protocols and risk evaluations. These protocols cover severe risks, such as assisting in the creation of biological weapons or carrying out large-scale automated criminal activity.
• Requires companies not to release models that create an unreasonable risk of critical harm.
• Requires companies to disclose serious incidents, such as if a dangerous AI model is stolen by a malicious actor or is behaving in a dangerous way.
• Allows the New York State Attorney General to bring civil penalties against large AI companies that fail to live up to these standards.

Many major AI companies have voluntarily committed to create safety and security plans, but there is currently no legal requirement that they have such plans, that they be reasonable, or that they are followed in practice. By writing these common-sense protections into law, the RAISE Act ensures no company is incentivized to cut corners or otherwise put short-term profits over safety. The law only applies to the largest AI companies that have spent over $100 million in computational resources to train advanced AI models, and focuses on the most urgent, severe risks.

“Would we let automakers sell a car with no brakes? Of course not. So why would we let developers release incredibly powerful AI tools without basic safeguards in place?” said State Senator Andrew Gounardes. “New Yorkers want technology to make their lives better and easier, not put their health and safety at risk. My RAISE Act ensures AI can flourish while requiring the largest companies to have a safety plan so their products aren't used to hurt people. It's exactly the type of reasonable, common-sense safeguard we'd expect of any company working on a potentially dangerous product, and it ensures no one has an incentive to cut corners or put profits over safety. The RAISE Act is a step into the future we all want and deserve.

“New York is poised to be the first government in the United States to do what Americans have been screaming for: require basic guardrails for AI safety. Developers have promised to keep us safe, and this bipartisan bill simply ensures that they keep their promises,” said Assemblymember Alex Bores. “By putting light-touch requirements on only the largest developers, we can keep New Yorkers safe while enabling innovation to thrive, which is why 84% of New Yorkers support the bill. The RAISE Act requires companies that have spent $100 million on training frontier models to have a safety plan and to report critical safety incidents. AI experts have been the loudest advocates for urgent government regulation now, emphasizing that if we wait too long, we may never get another chance. I'm proud New York is rising to this urgent occasion.”

"Young people waited a decade for our leaders to protect us from the harms of social media," said Adam Billen, Vice President of Public Policy at Encode AI. "Today, by passing the RAISE Act, the legislature has shown that it is committed to proactively safeguarding New Yorkers from AI harms, rather than waiting until they're already here."