Cesar Fernandez on AI companies should be liable for harms…

Cesar Fernandez

Head of US State and Local Government Relations at Anthropic

We are opposed to this bill. Good transparency legislation needs to ensure public safety and accountability for the companies developing this powerful technology, not provide a get-out-of-jail-free card against all liability.

AI Verified source (2026)

5mo ago

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AI companies should be liable for harms caused by their deployed models

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AI Verified The quote clearly implies support for holding AI companies legally accountable: it opposes giving companies a “get-out-of-jail-free card against all liability” and calls for “accountability for the companies developing this powerful technology.” That establishes a supportive stance on AI companies being liable for harms from their models. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote says legislation should ensure "accountability for the companies developing this powerful technology" and should not provide a "get-out-of-jail-free card against all liability," which clearly supports companies being liable. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Verified. The Gizmodo source URL (published April 14, 2026) contains the exact sentence and attributes it to “Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic’s head of US state and local government relations.” A contemporaneous WIRED report also reproduces the same wording as Fernandez’s statement, confirming the quote is real and verbatim. ([gizmodo.com](https://gizmodo.com/the-openai-anthropic-cold-war-comes-to-illinois-2000746324)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

AI Verified Source_url (gizmodo.com) could not be fetched directly (TLS "certificate is not yet valid" error), but I confirmed the quote verbatim via web search (Fortune, Breitbart, Capitol News Illinois, and others). Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic's head of U.S. state and local government relations, is quoted: "We are opposed to this bill. Good transparency legislation needs to ensure public safety and accountability for the companies developing this powerful technology, not provide a get-out-of-jail-free card against all liability." This referred to Illinois SB 3444, the OpenAI-backed bill that would have shielded frontier AI developers from liability for mass-casualty/large-damage harms. Author attribution (Head of US State and Local Government Relations at Anthropic) is correct. Year 2026 is correct. Vote "for" correctly aligns with statement #395 ("AI companies should be liable for harms caused by their deployed models") — Fernandez/Anthropic opposed a bill granting a liability shield, explicitly favoring accountability and liability for AI companies. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 4mo ago

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Cesar Fernandez votes For

Require AI labs to publish safety evaluations before deploying frontier models

SB 315 makes Illinois the first state to pair AI transparency requirements with independent verification, an important step toward the accountability this technology demands.

Unverifiable source (Jul 6, 2026)