California governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed a hotly contested artificial intelligence safety bill after the tech industry raised objections, saying it could drive AI companies from the state and hinder innovation. The bill, officially known as SB 1047, targets companies developing generative AI – which can respond to prompts with fully formed text, images or audio, as well as run repetitive tasks with minimal intervention. Newsom said he had asked leading experts on generative AI to help California “develop workable guardrails” that focus “on developing an empirical, science-based trajectory analysis”. He also ordered state agencies to expand their assessment of the risks from potential catastrophic events tied to AI use.