California signs the No Robo Bosses Act, barring AI-only firings
Newsom's veto-to-signature reversal closes out California's bill week with the first US workplace-AI law of its kind. Plus the Pentagon hands its future-of-warfare study to Musk and Luckey.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 947, the No Robo Bosses Act, on Wednesday — the first US law banning employers from relying solely on AI to fire or discipline workers, and a direct reversal of his own October 2025 veto. The bill, by State Senator Jerry McNerney, bars automated decision-making systems from being the sole basis for termination or discipline; when AI is the primary input, a human reviewer has to corroborate the decision with independent evidence — manager evaluations, peer reviews, personnel files — and the affected worker gets written notice that AI was mainly used, a description of the data behind it, and a human contact who can explain it. The original version died on Newsom's desk last year over what he called "unfocused notification requirements" pushed at "even the most innocuous tools"; McNerney reintroduced it in February, stripped the advance-notice mandate and the gig-worker coverage that drew Uber and Lyft's fire, and this time it landed. We read the bill before the signature — California is one signature away from regulating the robo boss — and the signing keeps the part with teeth: the notice creates a paper trail, which is what turns a wrongful-termination claim from an inference into a document. The context is that the US leads the world in algorithmic management, with 90% of managers telling the OECD their firms use at least one tool to instruct, monitor or evaluate workers, and public trust keeps sliding — Gallup puts 39% of Americans at "AI does more harm than good," up eight points in a year. Business groups weren't mollified — the Chamber of Progress urged a veto over the undefined "primarily relies" standard — but Republicans lined up for it instead, with GOP gubernatorial nominee Steve Hilton saying SB 947 doesn't go far enough. What to watch: enforcement shape when Newsom terms out in January, and whether New York, Louisiana and New Jersey copy the text.
The Pentagon is handing its "future of warfare" study to Elon Musk, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich — and creating a new four-star command for autonomous weapons the same day. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Project Meridian in his State of the Force address at Quantico on Wednesday: a 120-day study co-directed by the three, facilitated by DoD Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael, tasked with identifying the capabilities needed for "absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield," and delivering an unclassified public report with a classified annex. Alongside it, Hegseth ordered an Autonomous Warfare Command — built through an interim Project Agincourt pathway — to stand up as a four-star functional combatant command by October 1, 2027, which the department's own release calls the fastest peacetime operational shift in modern military history. The conflict-of-interest problem writes itself: SpaceX launches classified satellites for the government and Anduril is stacked with production contracts for long-range missiles and semi-autonomous aircraft, so the people recommending what the military should buy are the people who sell it. This is also Musk's first formal return to the administration's fold since leaving DOGE last year.
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Sources: CNBC · California State Senate · AP via CBS Sacramento · Department of War press release · Project Meridian commissioning memo · The Guardian · TechCrunch
