A state senator introduced a bill last month to formally recognize artificial intelligence as a research concentration at UC research institutes.

If passed, Senate Bill 607 would allow one of the four California Institutes for Science and Innovation – which are multidisciplinary research institutes on UC campuses – to add AI as a concentration. The Cal ISIs – which former Gov. Gray Davis established in 2000 – each have different concentrations, including medicine, bioengineering and telecommunications.

The California NanoSystems Institute, which is jointly operated by UC Santa Barbara, is the only Cal ISI on UCLA’s campus. The institute focuses on nanotechnology research in disciplines including engineering, life sciences, medicine and physical sciences, said Jeff Miller, the director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, in an emailed statement.

However, Miller said in the statement that SB 607 may not have a direct impact on the institute.

“As we understand, an area of concentration for AI would likely be integrated into another Cal ISI where their area of focus is directly aligned with AI technologies,” he said in the emailed statement.

State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced SB 607 in September as a $23 billion research bond measure aimed at supporting research in California amid federal funding reductions. The UC had more than $230 million in terminated or suspended grants as of Jan. 8, according to the UC Office of the President.

Wiener later introduced the same bill as SB 895.

However, Wiener amended SB 607 on Jan. 5, switching its contents to address AI research at the Cal ISIs instead.

Wiener said in a January press conference that the authors always intended to introduce SB 895 as its own bill and chose to propose the bond measure under SB 607 to spark discussion while continuing to develop the bill near the end of the 2025 legislative session.

The bill, which passed in the Senate unanimously Jan. 20, is currently being held at desk in the California Assembly – which means that it is available for immediate consideration but not referred to committee.

[Related link: Senate Bill 895 seeks to establish $23 billion research fund amid federal cuts]

Camille Crittenden, the director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute – one of four Cal ISIs which is located at UC Berkeley – said she believes SB 607 is a continuation of Wiener’s interest in regulating AI use, including his earlier introduction of Senate Bill 53.

SB 53 – also known as the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act – was signed into law Sept. 29 and requires large-scale AI model developers to create and publicly disclose their safety protocols. The law also protects whistleblowers and established CalCompute – a state-run cloud service that seeks to expand access to AI infrastructure beyond private companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

“This is continuing his interest in not just the promotion of the positive impacts of AI but also trying to put guardrails around its use,” she said.

Crittenden said that while artificial intelligence was not included in the institutes’ founding legislation more than 25 years ago, it is now embedded in the work of all of the Cal ISIs. She added that researchers across the Cal ISIs use both rule-based and generative AI in their research.

“We’re already doing a lot of research with artificial intelligence,” she said. “The nice thing about this amendment is that it will highlight the work that we are already doing.”

Crittenden said recent advancements in generative AI have sparked interest in using language and multimedia models across different research fields.

For example, researchers can use AI tools to translate video data of human activity into instructions for humanoid robots, replacing manual programming, she added.

Crittenden said AI has not only been applied to scientific research but also to policy research encompassing the impacts of generative AI tools on society – including public sentiment manipulation, worker surveillance and deepfakes.

Henry Friedman, the vice chair of curriculum and teaching at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, said he believes SB 607’s impact will vary across the institutes, given that each is structured differently.

“There’s just a lot of open space there in terms of what it will actually end up doing,” he said.

Friedman said AI is already integrated across Anderson’s MBA, master’s and doctoral programs. He added that some courses now focus directly on emerging AI tools and their impact on business practices, while others integrate AI into existing coursework.

“We’ve got faculty in a couple different areas who are teaching courses specific to AI in different flavors, whether focused on agents, or new tools, or changes to business practices,” he said.

Faculty have also introduced AI tutoring bots, simulations and role-playing exercises to supplement traditional business management teaching, Friedman said. For instance, some faculty are using AI-simulated interactions to improve students’ management skills, he added.

Friedman added that he believes innovation in AI is moving quickly – and the bill will help support that innovation, especially at the UCs.

“California is a historically innovative state,” he said. “It’s nice to see legislative support for California innovation and the recognition that the UCs, the UC system and campuses in particular can help serve as a vehicle for innovation.”