Pritzker signs Illinois bill aimed at artificial intelligence accountability
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday signed legislation aimed at holding artificial intelligence companies accountable.
Senate Bill 315 passed unanimously in the Illinois state Senate and House of Representatives in May. The bill was modeled after 2025 laws in New York and California, in an effort to further a national standard lawmakers say is lacking at the federal level.
"AI is the single most significant technological innovation and development of the modern age," Pritzker said Monday. "When managed properly, it can foster tremendous growth, productivity, and innovation across the economy and vastly improve our quality of life. But with that transformative potential comes catastrophic risk, much of which isn't fully understood yet."
The governor said a lack of federal oversight and the avarice of tech leaders are leading to a serious problem when it comes to AI.
"Unfortunately, we've seen a glaring, but not surprising lack of leadership and foresight from our own federal government, and a mindless rush to riches among private-sector tech leaders," he said. "That has fueled a race to the bottom, marked by a lack of protection of private and personal information, the potential for harmful model behavior, and unintended algorithm jailbreaks. Those are serious threats to the public interest and to the future."
The bill requires developers to create and publish a transparency framework explaining how the company applies industry standards, measures model capabilities and the chance of catastrophic risk, and identifies and responds to safety incidents.
Developers will also now be required to employ third-party auditors to ensure compliance with the framework, a provision that is still a point of contention for some industry stakeholders, including TechNet, a coalition of tech executives across the industry.
SB315 is targeted toward the most capable models developed by the largest companies through its thresholds — $500 million in revenue and a massive computing measurement. OpenAI and Anthropic both supported the bill throughout its process, and it passed the state House 110-0.
In a 52-5 vote, state senators went on to approve the bill.
Senate sponsor Sen. Mary Edly-Allen (D-Libertyville) compared the technology to the "wild, wild West," and said lawmakers can't take the same approach they did with social media, an approach that was minimal until recently.
Pritzker was joined by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Westchester), and other state leaders as he signed the bill Monday morning.
Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
