California already keeps a register of the people allowed to audit an AI system. The governor’s office says he signed AB 1405 the week before last, “creating a state registry for AI auditors that assess AI systems and models for compliance with state law and establishing standards for their independence, transparency, and integrity.” A second law, SB 813, set up a framework for the outfits that do the assessing.
The laws created those things. What the September 18 executive order does is separate: it directs the Government Operations Agency to accelerate the implementation timelines for both. The order doesn’t publish the new dates.
The same order directs experts to deliver recommendations within two months, including consideration of an emergency shutoff mechanism and embedded independent verification. In the governor’s own wording, that means asking them to weigh requiring frontier AI companies to embed a designated independent verification organization onsite in their labs, and requiring that the safety frameworks and risk assessments those companies already file get verified.
The shutoff is where the headlines went. It is something the state has asked experts to work up, not a rule this order imposes.