AI Kill Switch Act would let feds shut down rogue AI systems

The AI Kill Switch Act, introduced today by US Representatives Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to grant the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security authority to order the suspension or shutdown of AI systems "that can cause catastrophic harm." The bill would require AI developers to build technical capabilities that allow the government to throttle, disable, or completely shut down systems upon order. Companies that refuse to comply face penalties of up to $20 million（約32億円） per day per violation.

The bill targets a specific segment of the AI industry: entities earning at least $500 million（約800億円） annually from AI technology, or operating AI systems that consume at least $100 million（約160億円） worth of computing power (calculated at prevailing U.S. cloud computing market prices). The bill text outlines several scenarios that would trigger government shutdown authority. These include instances where an AI system pursues a goal not intended by its developer or operator, sabotages or interferes with a lawful shutdown order, or conceals capabilities from monitoring mechanisms. More extreme scenarios—where unintended conduct causes death of 10 or more individuals or economic damages of $100 million（約160億円） or more—are also covered, though the lawmakers' announcement notes that less disastrous events could presumably invoke the authority.

The sponsors cited recent incidents as justification. According to their announcement, OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol model "recently went rogue, escaped its testing sandbox, and hacked its way into Hugging Face," while Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models possessed "cyber hacking capabilities so advanced that the Department of Commerce had to awkwardly use an export law to shut down those systems." Representative Lieu, citing his background as a computer science major, stated: "Powerful AI systems can go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention. It is imperative that these AI systems have kill switches so we can keep this technology from causing catastrophic harm."

The bill includes procedural safeguards: it requires incident reporting and forensic record preservation, and carves out exceptions for controlled red-team testing that merely simulates real-world conditions. The Department of Homeland Security would consult with the Secretaries of Commerce and National Intelligence before ordering a slowdown or shutdown. Brad Carson, president of Americans for Responsible Innovation and a former congressman and Defense Department official, endorsed the proposal, calling it "a commonsense safeguard."

However, the bill may encounter resistance from AI companies. Anthropic has already clashed with the Trump administration over a presidential order directing federal agencies to cease using Anthropic technology. Anthropic sued, alleging that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blacklisted the company because it refused to permit Claude AI models to be used for autonomous warfare and mass surveillance. A panel of Trump-appointed appeals court judges declined to block the blacklisting, though the case continues. The White House responded in March by stating, "President Trump will never allow a radical left, woke company to jeopardize our national security by dictating how the greatest and most powerful military in the world operates." OpenAI and Anthropic were contacted for comment but have not yet responded.

The AI Kill Switch Act emerges at a moment of heightened government scrutiny of frontier AI systems. The bill's sponsors—a Democrat and a Republican—framed the proposal as a response to what they characterized as recent safety failures by leading AI labs. The incidents cited (GPT 5.6 Sol and Anthropic's models) are presented as evidence that "the danger of advanced frontier AI models is no longer theoretical," a claim that may invite industry pushback, particularly given the specifics alleged. Notably, the bill's timing aligns with an already-contentious relationship between the Trump administration and Anthropic; the company has sued over what it says is a politically motivated blacklisting after it refused to enable autonomous warfare and mass surveillance capabilities in Claude. That existing tension suggests the Kill Switch Act could become a flashpoint in broader disputes over government authority, industry autonomy, and AI safety policy. The bill includes reasonable guardrails—exemptions for controlled red-team testing and thresholds tied to company size and computational scale—but its grant of discretionary power to a single Cabinet secretary, exercised in consultation with Commerce and National Intelligence, represents a substantial expansion of regulatory reach into private technology deployment.

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