California Eyes AI Rules to Limit Training Data, Protect Minors

California policymakers are taking several steps that would limit how artificial intelligence companies use personal data to train their technology.

The regulatory and legislative efforts come as tech titans like Meta Platforms Inc. and OpenAI Inc. are reportedly starving for digital data—from news articles to photos—to develop the most powerful models. Those systems need vast amounts of data to learn how to instantly produce realistic images, video, and other content.

State lawmakers voted three significant AI privacy bills out of committee in the past two weeks. And the California Privacy Protection Agency is working through its own privacy protection safeguards, ...