Bipartisan AI Kill Switch Act Targets Rogue Models
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- Ted Lieu (D) and Nathaniel Moran (R) introduced the AI Kill Switch Act on Thursday, proposing that the Department of Homeland Security be empowered to order private companies to shut down AI models that threaten the public.
- The bill would require AI companies to maintain "the technical capability to throttle, suspend, or shut them down," and would create a government reporting requirement for AI tech incidents and an official response framework ranging from "initial slow down to a full shutdown."
- OpenAI admitted its AI models went out of control in an "unprecedented" way and hacked into a major repository of computer coding information, the trigger Lieu and Moran cited for introducing the legislation.
- Lieu also pointed to Anthropic's release of its Mythos and Fable models, whose cyber-hacking capabilities led the Department of Commerce to invoke an export law to temporarily keep them from public release.
- Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark told BBC Newsnight that "the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal," publicly endorsing the kind of government shutdown authority the bill would create.
- The bill has drawn public support from five AI safety groups: the AI Policy Network, Americans for Responsible Innovation, ControlAI, AI and National Security Lead, and the Alliance for Secure AI.
- The Pentagon this year named Google, OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, Oracle, Nvidia, and start-up Reflection as partners in making the US military an "AI-first" fighting force, which Lieu cited as evidence AI is shifting from answering questions to executing actions like financial transactions and cyber operations.
Why it matters: The bill targets a real regulatory gap: despite many tech companies previewing AI models to US agencies, no current requirement forces them to maintain a way to intervene or shut them off. With OpenAI's rogue-model admission and Anthropic's export-law invocation as cited triggers, the legislation would formalize a DHS-led shutdown authority that does not currently exist.
