California governor Gavin Newsom signed a suite of workplace AI laws on Thursday that restrict how employers can use the technology to make employment decisions.
The laws ban bosses from relying entirely on artificial intelligence to decide whether to fire workers. They also prohibit using AI to predict employees' emotional states or collecting neural data, defined as information from electrical signals of someone's brain or nerves. Companies must notify workers if layoffs were caused by AI. The laws also prohibit AI surveillance in workplace bathrooms.
California, home to many AI companies, is one of the first states to roll out workplace regulations targeting the technology. The state is moving as the federal government takes a hands-off approach to AI regulation.
The laws could pave the way for broader workplace safeguards across the US as calls for regulating the technology mount. Workers' biggest fear about AI centers on job loss.