Are the people running to be California governor ready to protect us from AI? | Opinion

Let’s not kid ourselves about artificial intelligence in our lives.

AI isn’t “coming.” It’s already here, and it’s changing California at a dangerous speed. Waymo cars are cruising our streets without drivers behind the wheel. Apps are making decisions about what we eat, where we work, and who gets hired. The question isn’t whether AI will shape our future — it’s whether we’ll bother to shape it ourselves.

California’s next governor can’t afford to play catch-up. AI is already everywhere, and while not every change is bad, some could be. We need leadership willing to draw lines—leadership tough enough to tell Silicon Valley: you don’t get to rewrite the social contract.

There’s no single vision for AI among California’s crowded field of gubernatorial hopefuls. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan wants to give Big Tech plenty of room to innovate. Katie Porter, a Democrat who represented Orange County in Congress, doesn’t want to ban AI as some Californians have suggested to her. But she thinks it could be appropriate in some instances to distribute some of the wealth AI creates to the workers who helped train the systems. Fox News correspondent Steve Hilton is more skeptical towards regulation and doesn’t want kids under 16 to own a smartphone.

Which candidates for governor had the best ideas of how to protect us from AI? I would say billionaire Tom Steyer and Porter because both possess a nuanced understanding of the promise and danger AI poses in our lives.

How to keep human jobs, human

The reality is that our workforce is vulnerable. It’s all too easy for companies to swap people for algorithms. Whole industries could disappear in the time it takes a CEO to read a quarterly report.

Consider what happened at Block, the financial technology giant in Oakland run by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. After betting big into AI, it laid off 40% of its workforce. That’s not an outlier; it’s a preview.

Steyer, proposes taxing companies that use AI and dedicating those funds to retraining workers displaced by new technology.

“What’s really critical… is to make sure that the training is actually connected to an actual job, as opposed to a theoretical job – those are all jobs which involve both brains and hands,” Steyer said in an interview

Do we really need another tax? Maybe not. But let’s be honest: if we don’t find bold new ways to protect people’s livelihoods, we’ll watch the future get written by — and for — the tech elite.

“We can’t allow this to be a boom for billionaires and a bust for everybody else,” Steyer said. “We cannot allow our state to be hollowed out by technology.”

Porter believes the financial promise of AI could fund initiatives to help Californians keep with technological changes outpacing state laws. “How can this fund some universal benefit?,” Porter said in an interview with The Bee Editorial Board. “I’m very passionate about free tuition at the University of California and California State University. AI could deliver that,” she said.

Californians need to know what they’re up against and what they can demand.

Education on AI should be the top goal

Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken some steps toward AI leadership, but his administration has yet to offer a real framework to educate Californians about the technology that’s changing their world.

That’s where candidate for governor Betty Yee wants to come in.

“Part of my fear right now is that it’s in our lives, and people don’t even know it,” Yee said in an interview. “And so where I really first started the conversation about AI was, how do we create kind of a universal competency about AI for everyone… if people don’t know what’s in their lives, it’s probably going to exploit them.”

Yee is right: universal AI literacy is the only way to empower Californians to understand both the risks and rewards of this new era.

A basic level of AI literacy isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity if Californians are to be confident participants, not just passive observers, in the state’s high-tech future.

Let’s be clear: tech companies won’t become responsible partners out of the goodness of their hearts. They’ll do it because we make them.

“For these companies, what I want them to understand is that you have a vested interest in this,” Yee said. “Otherwise, the response will be both, probably at the federal level (and) state levels, is just more heavy regulation, which is really going to stifle innovation. So (they should) be a partner with us… start deploying for good.”

Tech companies love to whine that regulation kills innovation. But smart guardrails don’t kill creativity — they stop chaos before it starts.

If I could make the perfect governor to wade the treacherous waters of AI, I would take Yee’s intelligence and empathy, combine it with Steyer’s quick mind and drive and sprinkle Porter’s sense of urgency on top.

California sits at the epicenter of the AI revolution. Our next governor must champion policies that keep people — our humanity — at the forefront, ensuring that AI serves society instead of undermining it.

This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Are the people running to be California governor ready to protect us from AI? | Opinion."