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On 2026-05-13 Dean W Ball says the bill adds an audit requirement that was absent…

Brief

Dean W Ball argues the newly added audit requirement (published 2026-05-13) demands independent expert teams able to verify safety claims, governance, deployments, and technical safeguards. He favors a private evaluator ecosystem to set and spread best practices, warns the compliance industry is inadequate, and welcomes OpenAI’s endorsement of KOSA and Illinois SB315.

Why it matters

On 2026-05-13 Dean W Ball says the bill adds an audit requirement that was absent from the final New York and California bills; he insists audits must be done by independent expert teams that can scrutinize safety claims, internal governance, internal AI deployments, and technical safeguards.

Key details

  • Ball argues a private ecosystem of evaluators/auditors should emerge to catalyze technical standards and best practices; he warns traditional compliance firms lack the requisite technical expertise and urgency, and suggests liability, insurance, and voluntary standards might suffice without immediate legal mandates.
  • Ball applauds OpenAI’s endorsement; reporter Ashley Gold notes OpenAI is endorsing both KOSA and Illinois SB315 (a frontier AI bill mirroring NY and CA approaches), favoring state-level consistency over waiting for a federal standard.
Source evidence

Importantly, this adds an audit requirement, which did not make it into the final version of the NY and CA bills. I have some trepidation about what “auditing,” by default, will mean. These will need to be teams of independent experts who can really scrutinize the safety claims/outcomes, internal governance, internal AI deployments, and technical safeguards of AI labs.

The good version of the future, in my view, is one where an ecosystem of private bodies exists to do the above work, and in so doing, helps to catalyze “best practices” and technical standards for all of the above categories. These may have to be mandated in law eventually, but maybe not; the typical gradients of liability, insurance, and voluntary technical standards may well be sufficient (the latter is my hope).

The bottom line is: this ecosystem of private evaluators/auditors cannot be “business as usual.” The standard “compliance industry” playbook lacks the urgency and frankly the AGI-pilledness to be sufficient for the job to be done. Doing this job well requires significant technical expertise and situational awareness.

But if the passage of this bill catalyzes a healthy private governance ecosystem in AI, it will be a very good thing indeed. I applaud OpenAI for the endorsement!

Ashley Gold (@ashleyrgold)

OpenAI is endorsing both KOSA (!) and Illinois' SB315 today, a frontier AI bill that mirrors the NY and Cali approaches OpenAI previously endorsed. In: state consistency, out: praying hopelessly for a federal standard

— https://nitter.net/ashleyrgold/status/2054566372198203639#m