The RAISE Act: Minimum Standards for Frontier AI Development, with NY Assembly Member Alex Bores

**Nathan Labenz** (0:00)
Hello, and welcome back to The Cognitive Revolution. Today, my guest is Alex Bores, New York State Assemblymember, representing New York's State District 73 on the east side of Manhattan, and sponsor of the RAISE Act, a bill designed to set a minimum standard for safety practices among large AI developers. In the generally polarized political environment that we take for granted in 2025, it is a striking fact that while poll after poll shows that significant majorities of voters across both American parties and internationally want more regulation of AI, with far more voters worried that the government won't go far enough than that it will go too far, the United States still has no meaningful laws covering foundation models or frontier AI development. In part, this reflects the fact that while people generally agree on this issue, it's not a top priority for many. In part, it's the result of a very healthy fear among legislators that they don't understand this fast-moving technology wave well enough to regulate it effectively and thus might end up doing more harm than good. And in part, it stems from the fear that anything that slows US AI development down could allow Chinese AI developers to get ahead and ultimately win whatever AI race we ultimately find ourselves running. These are real and important concerns, and I've spent most of my adult life arguing against premature or heavy-handed regulation that might inadvertently deny us the benefits of breakthrough technologies.
But nonetheless, it seems to me that especially considering the breathtaking pace of AI capabilities' advances and the fact that even among Turing Award winners, forecasts range from AI-enabled utopia to AI-caused human extinction, a functioning democracy would be responsive enough to public concern to put at least some minimal standards in place now, both to reduce catastrophic risks and hopefully to avoid a future crisis, real or perceived, that could lead to knee-jerk and ultimately counterproductive decisions. With that in mind, I think Assemblymember Boris, who notably has a master's degree in computer science and spent a decade in the tech industry, including a number of years at Palantir, is perhaps the tech-savviest and friendliest legislator the industry could hope for. And the RAISE Act, which targets large AI companies and imposes relatively modest requirements around the development and publication of a safety plan, audits to assure the safety plans are followed, and whistleblower protections to alert the public if they're not, is approximately the least burdensome regulation we could realistically expect to see passed. And it should be said, is very much in line with voluntary commitments that Frontier Model developers have previously made. Nevertheless, in this conversation, we get deep into the weeds of the various definitions the bill uses and the requirements it imposes. I act as a sort of red teamer of the bill, and Assemblymember Boris clarifies and defends key provisions, and also explains the process he's already gone through to work and compromise with industry, and also to avoid a situation in which lots of different states create undue friction by passing their own distinct regulatory frameworks. Importantly, everything we discuss would only apply to a high single-digit or perhaps low double-digit number of super well-resourced companies that are working at the frontier of AI capabilities. And these companies would still have wide latitude to design their own safety plans, so long as they take reasonable care to minimize risks that could cause a hundred or more human deaths or greater than one billion dollars in damages, via either chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear mechanisms or what I would call automated crime. While some will no doubt raise additional good-faith objections, I found Assemblymember Bores' defense of the bill's neutral stance with respect to open source quite compelling. And as you'll hear, I hope, if anything, that this bill spurs open source champions to invest heavily in new safety techniques, so that we can continue to enjoy open source frontier AI without dramatically elevating the risk of engineered pandemics or other AI-enabled disasters. In any case, this is just the first of a series of episodes on different AI policy proposals that we'll be bringing you this summer. So I look forward to exploring a broad range of perspectives, and I will continue to watch this bill as it evolves through the legislative process. As always, if you're finding value in the show, we'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to share it with friends, read a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. Of course, we welcome your feedback either via our website, cognitiverevolution.ai, or by DMing me on your favorite social network. Finally, a quick reminder, I'll be speaking at Imagine AI Live coming up May 28-30 in Las Vegas, the Adapta Summit August 12-13 in São Paulo, Brazil, and the Enterprise Tech Leadership Summit September 23-25 in Las Vegas. If you'll be at any of these events, definitely send me a note and let's meet up in person. For now, I hope you enjoy this deep dive into the RAISE Act, a bill meant to raise the floor for frontier AI development safety practices, with New York Assembly member and sponsor, Alex Bores. New York Assembly member, Alex Bores, sponsor of the RAISE Act. Welcome to The Cognitive Revolution.