The veto of AB 2575 leaves nurses without explicit protection when they exercise judgement to protect patients.

Governor Gavin Newsom's veto of AB 2575 gives hospital corporations a green light to discipline nurses who override unsafe artificial intelligence (A.I.) to protect their patients, enabling tech companies to blame health care workers when tech products cause harm.

"The governor knows A.I. should never replace a nurse's clinical judgment, but he vetoed the bill that would have protected us for using our judgment," said Sandy Reding, RN and president of California Nurses Association. "That makes no sense to any nurse at the bedside. Today, a nurse who sees that the algorithm is wrong and acts to save her patient can still be disciplined or fired by her employer.”

AB 2575, authored by Assemblymember Liz Ortega (AD-20) and co-sponsored by the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, would have protected health care workers' rights to exercise their clinical judgment, including overriding unsafe or inappropriate A.I. recommendations, without fear of retaliation. It would have also prevented A.I. developers and health care entities from shifting responsibility for harm caused by their tools or their implementations onto the health care workers who use them.

In a 2024 CNA survey of more than 2,000 registered nurses, two-thirds said automated acuity scores measuring patients’ care needs did not match their own assessments of their patients. Meanwhile, hospitals keep deploying A.I. tools to cut costs and speed up care while ignoring the needs of patients.

"Californians want a nurse, not a robot, making the final call,” said Assemblymember Liz Ortega. “AB 2575 would have guaranteed that, and I will keep fighting until every Californian has that protection."

“No machine can replace the judgment, compassion, or human touch of a nurse. We are deeply disappointed the governor vetoed an urgent bill that would have ensured skilled, qualified healthcare professionals have oversight over A.I. in hospitals to do what’s best for their patients,” said Lorena Gonzalez, President of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO. “When it comes to deployment of A.I. in healthcare, we need to trust the workers on the frontlines. We are committed to bringing this bill back next year. Human control and oversight of AI in healthcare is a matter of life and death.”

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with more than 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and more than 225,000 RNs nationwide.