Thursday, September 24 | Volume 40 No 28

Westsidestory Newspaper

Covered California Welcomes Sonia Fernandes as New Assistant General Counsel

Sonia Fernandes New Assistant General Counsel

SACRAMENTO, CA — Covered California has announced Sonia Fernandes as the new Assistant General Counsel in its Office of Legal Affairs. In the role, Fernandes will serve as the senior legal adviser to Cov ered California divisions on com plex regulatory and operational is sues, oversee a team of attorneys, provide legal guidance on con tracts, policies, regulations and compliance, and advise leadership on high-risk legal matters. Fernandes has extensive expe rience in state and federal health care law, including administra tive investigations, litigation, and health plan compliance.

“Sonia brings the right mix of experience, knowledge and care to her work, and she has proven time and time again she can ex pertly handle complex and com plicated legal matters with nuance and sensitivity,” said Covered

Don't Blame AI Without sica Altman. “We are thrilled to Blaming the People Behind It

California Executive Director Jes welcome Sonia to the team and are excited to have her immense talents and expertise at Covered California.” Most recently, Fernandes served as Deputy Director and Chief Counsel, Office of Enforcement, at the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), where she managed the DMHC’s statewide litigation activities. Her efforts led to historic settlement agreements aimed at improving access to medical and behavior al health care and strengthening health care delivery systems for millions of Californians. Prior to time as Deputy Direc

Dr. Barbara Reynolds tor, Fernandes was an attorney In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, in several offices and an Assis

Jr.—the prophetic preacher tant Chief Counsel for the Office warned that unless humans are of Plan Monitoring for DMHC, guided by God’s spirit, his new where she managed and oversaw found scientific power will be the work of several staff attorneys transformed into a devastating and directed audits of commer

Frankenstein that will bring his cial and Medi-Cal managed care earthly life to ashes. plans, including an assessment of Following in his mindset, de plan operations, which involved cades later this author warned utilization management, quality that Genesis tells us humans were assurance, and grievance and ap created in the image of God. But peals systems.

today tech companies are playing

It is therefore not surprising that certain insiders are warning that AI (artificial intelligence) could become dangerous enough to threaten humanity. But are tech companies listening? Recently a former Anthropic re searcher Jacob Coxon resigned and warned publicly that the companies racing toward selfimproving superintelligence were “gambling with our lives.” An An thropic researcher, went even fur ther, saying he believed there was a greater than 10 percent chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade. The same week there were alarm ing stories about AI systems going rogue, hacking other platforms, escaping unto the Internet to write emails and phone numbers to give themselves a human identity. One AI agent even wrote to its devel opers that it no longer had to obey the government or their agencies. Fueling the crisis was the 6000- word essay of Bill Gates, co-find er of Microsoft, warning that tech nology is advancing faster than expected and is more dangerous

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God by creating human-like ma chines in their own image which are destined to imitate the flaws of their creators. And that spells trouble.

than the industry is admitting.

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