By admin 
California companies will be required to disclose when they use artificial intelligence-generated actors to sell a product or service, under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday.
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Current law makes it a misdemeanor for companies to engage in “deceptive” marketing practices. The law Newsom signed, Senate Bill 1050, adds AI performers to that list. Its sponsor, Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, called it a victory for Hollywood workers who have lost job opportunities as companies increasingly turn to synthetic performers like AI-generated actor Tilly Norwood.
“This bill provides important protections for the creative economy, who are the living heartbeat of California,” Ashby said in a statement. “The bill requires that synthetic figures be labeled as such, thus protecting consumers from false advertising and disallowing AI to replace real people — real people who work every day to bring stories and brands to life in the production of all entertainment across the great Golden State.”
Lawmakers across the country, from statehouses to Congress, have begun to consider more guardrails around AI as the public has expressed concerns over the burgeoning technology and its ability to supplant jobs.
Last year, a host of Hollywood talent from Don Cheadle to Mark Ruffalo successfully pressured Newsom into supporting guardrails that require AI companies to adopt security protocols and report safety incidents to the state, arguing that the industry could not be trusted to police itself.
More recently, researchers at top firms like Anthropic have publicly said they are concerned about AI’s pace of advancement and the potential risks it could build biological weapons and pose other threats to humanity.
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Newsom signed SB 1050 at the Los Angeles headquarters of the SAG-AFTRA union, which helped write the bill, according to its national executive director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
“SAG-AFTRA was proud to help craft the language of the bill, which gives consumers greater transparency by making clear when they are seeing synthetics rather than human performers,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “This is an important step in the broader effort to protect consumers from deceptive AI practices, and to ensure that AI technology isn’t used at the expense of human creativity and consent.”
Newsom has signed a number of AI bills in recent years as he has simultaneously spoken about his daily reliance on large language models like Anthropic’s Claude, while acknowledging public anxieties about its potential to supplant whole industries, including Hollywood.
“Californians deserve to know when the person selling them something isn’t a person at all,” he said in a statement. “As AI transforms the entertainment industry, we’re protecting workers while ensuring California’s creative economy can continue to grow and thrive.”
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