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The California Public Employees’ Pension Retirement System could take a stance on artificial intelligence after several board members expressed concerns this week about the technology’s long-term effects.
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Some board members raised questions after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly resigned, saying the technology could end humanity in the next decade. Coxon’s announcement sparked debate about regulations on AI development.
“I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic,” Coxon wrote in an X post. “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
CalPERS President Theresa Taylor asked the pension fund’s staff if the department is exploring taking a stance on AI and what the technology’s rapid growth could mean.
“Is it possible that we, as the largest pension fund in the United States, make a statement about (the technology)?” she said. “I think it’s important that we weigh in on this.”
Mary Lynne Vellinga, a CalPERS spokesperson, confirmed Wednesday the agency is taking a “deep look” at AI investments and use.
“The CalPERS team assesses the effect of a wide range of risk factors when evaluating potential investments, including those involved in or affected by artificial intelligence,” Vellinga said. “We have also launched a deep look at how we hold AI in our portfolio, how we use AI internally, and how a large institutional investor such as CalPERS can responsibly invest in AI and the infrastructure that facilitates it.”
Artificial intelligence and data centers have spurred economic growth and it helped cancel out negative factors in the oil industry amid the Iran War said CalPERS Investment Manager Lauren Rosborough Watt during the Monday meeting. It’s also a potential cause for negative sentiment about everyday costs, like gas prices, to differ from positive investment returns.
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“I think the disconnect in some way is due to this new innovation that’s been coming through AI,” Watt said.
Technological advances partly led to CalPERS 14.8% return last fiscal year.
Pending data center construction, which contains the physical infrastructure needed to run AI models, has increased to nearly $70 billion, according to CalPERS, up from around $10 billion in 2022.
Board member Lisa Middleton questioned what would happen if sentiment about AI causes that industry to decline, potentially affecting investment portfolios.
“At what point do we need to start looking to what the downside could be?” Middleton said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is also debating whether he should take further action on the technology, Politico first reported Thursday. This could play out in a special session, executive action or through state agencies controlled by the governor.
President Donald Trump hasn’t taken steps to impose strict regulations on AI, in part to maintain an advantage over China. But CalPERS President Taylor doesn’t necessarily view international affairs as a sufficient reason alone to oppose regulation.
“I just want to make sure that (CalPERS staff) are on the same page — profits or not, whether or not China’s going to keep going — this is about humanity,” Taylor said at Monday’s board meeting.
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