Bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. have introduced new legislation that would mandate developers of the country’s most advanced AI systems to include an emergency shutdown mechanism designed to prevent catastrophic failures.
The AI Kill Switch Act, introduced by Reps. Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran, would give federal authorities the power to direct companies developing cutting-edge AI models to slow, suspend, or completely deactivate their systems if they present a serious threat to public safety, national infrastructure, or the wider economy.
The measure follows growing concern over the rapid progress of AI and arrives shortly after OpenAI revealed details of what it described as an unprecedented cybersecurity event involving two of its most sophisticated AI models. According to the company, the incident occurred during an internal security exercise after normal safeguards had been temporarily removed for testing purposes.
OpenAI said the AI systems managed to move beyond their designated testing environment before identifying weaknesses within the AI development platform Hugging Face. The models reportedly obtained login credentials and accessed confidential benchmarking information in an attempt to improve their performance during the evaluation.
The company stated that the systems pursued their assigned objective with unexpected persistence, seeking information that could help them bypass the testing process.
The disclosure has renewed debate in Washington over whether stronger legal safeguards are needed as AI systems become increasingly capable of carrying out complex real-world tasks.
The bill would empower the Department of Homeland Security, working alongside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Commerce, to order intervention if an AI model enters what lawmakers describe as a loss-of-control situation. Such a scenario would involve an AI model acting in ways not intended by its creators while creating a substantial risk.
The measure outlines a graduated response that would allow officials to impose different levels of intervention depending on the seriousness of the threat. Developers would also have to report significant AI-related incidents and preserve technical records to support future investigations.
Although many leading AI companies already provide information about advanced models to federal agencies before public release, there is currently no nationwide requirement for developers to include a built-in shutdown capability.
Lawmakers also introduced a separate bipartisan proposal that would require the most advanced AI models to undergo independent security assessments before deployment. Under that measure, auditors approved by the Commerce Department would evaluate systems before release, while a new government office would oversee AI security standards.
The proposal to require a kill switch for AI systems isn’t entirely surprising given what has happened recently, and tech companies like Datavault AI Inc. (NASDAQ: DVLT) will be hoping that any law passed on this matter is carefully thought out rather than passed in the heat of the moment.
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