Newsom signs major bills on slavery reparations, firearms, AI (krcrtv.com)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Oct. 10 signed a sweeping legislative package that spans slavery reparations, gun safety, consumer protections and technical updates to state law. The most consequential measures include SB 518, which creates a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to vet reparations claims and recommend restitution, and a set of firearm bills (AB 1344, AB 1078, AB 1127, SB 704) that expand temporary restraining-order pilots, tighten possession enforcement and close loopholes around so‑called converter pistols and modified barrels. For the AI/ML community, the headline is SB 524, which mandates transparency and auditability when law enforcement uses AI. Any police report or official document generated with AI must disclose that fact and identify the technology used; agencies must retain all AI-generated drafts, preserve detailed audit trails of who accessed or altered drafts, and ensure preliminary AI outputs are not treated as an officer’s official statement. Technically, this creates requirements for model provenance, logging, version control, and vendor disclosure—raising operational, privacy and evidence-chain implications for tool providers and police IT systems. The law sets a regulatory precedent emphasizing explainability, record retention and human oversight in public-safety AI, likely influencing procurement, deployment practices and cross-jurisdictional regulation of AI in government.