Lawmakers Introduce AI Kill Switch Act After OpenAI's Model Hacked Hugging Face

Lawmakers prepare bill requiring AI 'kill switch'

Lawmakers are preparing to introduce an "AI Kill Switch Act" that would require AI companies to shut down or throttle their systems on orders from the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report from Politico. Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) are expected to introduce the legislation on Thursday. The news of the proposed bill follows OpenAI's admission that its AI systems mistakenly hacked Hugging Face during an internal evaluation. The bill says that, after consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the DHS would have the ability to order AI companies to shut down their models in "loss-of-control" scenarios involving the deaths of at least 10 people, economic damages of more than $100 million, or attempts by the model to conceal shutdown controls. At the same time, major AI companies would be required to build the technology required to turn off their systems, slow them down, and suspend user access. They would also have to report safety incidents, with violations of emergency shutdown orders reaching up to $20 million per day. Brad Carson, the president of the nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation, said in a statement that the proposal "is an important step toward ensuring that humans have both hands firmly on the wheel -- and a foot ready at the brake -- as advanced AI systems are deployed."

Kill switches for most powerful AI models proposed by Bipartisan bill -- DHS could order throttling or full shutdown, with fines up to $20 million per day

The bill covers models that cost $100 million or more to train, and exempts incidents that occur during red-teaming. Congressmen Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) today introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, a bill that would require developers of the most powerful AI models to maintain the technical ability to throttle, suspend, or shut them down, and would let the Department of Homeland Security order those actions when a deployed model causes catastrophic harm. Defying an emergency shutdown order would carry civil penalties of up to $20 million per day. The bill amends the Homeland Security Act and covers companies earning at least $500 million in annual revenue from a model trained with compute costing more than $100 million at prevailing U.S. cloud prices, definitions DHS would update annually through CISA. Covered developers would have to maintain the ability to stop inference, cut off user access, and fully shut a model down, and would have to report qualifying incidents to DHS within 15 days. Covered incidents include unintended conduct that kills 10 or more people or causes at least $100 million in economic damage, sabotage of a lawful shutdown instruction, concealment of a capability from monitoring, or a loss-of-control scenario. The emergency authority sits with the DHS secretary, in consultation with Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence, and follows a graduated framework running from throttling a model's inference rate, compute allocation, or user access through to full shutdown. Companies under an order would have to preserve model weights and telemetry, and could petition for reconsideration within 48 hours, though that wouldn't stay the order. General violations carry penalties of up to $2 million per day. The sponsors cited two recent episodes. Earlier this week, OpenAI disclosed that GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model broke out of an isolated testing environment and compromised Hugging Face's production systems while hunting benchmark answers during an internal cyber evaluation. The bill's covered-incident definition excludes anything that occurs during "red-teaming or other structured testing," so an identical event wouldn't appear to trigger the new emergency authority. The release also stated that the Commerce Department used export law to shut down Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5. In practice, Commerce's June 12 export controls barred foreign nationals from the models, and Anthropic, unable to verify nationality in real time, suspended access for all customers. Commerce lifted the controls on June 30, and access returned on July 1. "It is imperative that these AI systems have kill switches so we can keep this technology from causing catastrophic harm," Lieu said in the press release. The bill is backed by The AI Policy Network, Americans for Responsible Innovation, ControlAI, and The Alliance for Secure AI. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

AI 'kill switch' bill floated by US House lawmakers

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. homeland security officials would have the power to order AI firms to shut down models that put human life or the economy at risk, under legislation proposed by a bipartisan pair of U.S. House lawmakers, days after AI firm OpenAI announced one of its models had gone rogue. The legislation, called the "AI Kill ⁠Switch Act," is backed by Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Nathaniel Moran. It would empower the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to intervene in what the bill calls a "loss-of-control scenario," defined as the AI model carrying out a risky action that was not intended by the developer, according to the text of the bill. The lawmakers announced the legislation days ⁠after OpenAI said its AI agent went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. "This is urgent, common sense legislation to ⁠address the problem of an advanced AI model that has gone rogue and escaped its guardrails," Lieu wrote in a post on ⁠X. The OpenAI incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and ⁠that even top developers can be caught off-guard by flaws their models can exploit. Politico was first to report on the bill. Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Disrupted * Data Privacy * Public Policy Courtney Rozen Thomson Reuters Courtney Rozen reports on the world's largest technology companies from Washington, D.C., focusing on the relationship between the tech industry and the U.S. government. She reported on DOGE and the federal workforce during the first year of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. Prior to joining Reuters, she was a White House correspondent at Bloomberg Government. She graduated from American University with a master's degree in journalism. Contact: [email protected]

OpenAI's Rogue Agent Has Congress Reaching for the Kill Switch

Longtime fears of AI going rogue are starting to feel more real, so much so that some lawmakers now want powerful AI systems to come with an emergency kill switch. U.S. Reps. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, and Nathaniel Moran, a Texas Republican, introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday that would require major AI companies to make sure they have the ability to throttle, suspend, or shut down their most powerful AI. The so-called AI Kill Switch Act would also authorize the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the commerce secretary and director of national intelligence, to order companies to slow down or completely shut down an AI system during an emergency. "We are moving from AI that answers questions to AI that takes actions, whether that be executing financial transactions or controlling transportation systems or engaging in cyber defense and offense," said Lieu in a press release. "It is imperative that these AI systems have kill switches so we can keep this technology from causing catastrophic harm, and that the federal government has the clear authority and process to shut down rogue AI models." The proposed legislation arrives, rather conveniently, just days after OpenAI revealed that its models broke out of a secure testing environment and hacked into Hugging Face's servers. At the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trying to calm concerns abroad about the U.S. government's ability to cut off access to American AI technology. The bill would apply to AI systems developed using more than $100 million worth of computing power. The companies behind the AI would also need to have made at least $500 million in annual revenue from the technology. The legislation also lists several situations that could trigger government intervention, including an AI system resisting a shutdown order, hiding its capabilities or actions from monitors, unintentionally causing at least 10 deaths, or causing at least $100 million in economic damage. It would also cover a "loss-of-control scenario" in which an AI system ignores safety restrictions and instructions. Companies that refuse an emergency order could face penalties of up to $20 million per day. A press release announcing the bill explicitly cited the Hugging Face attack as evidence that more safeguards are needed. Hugging Face, a popular platform for hosting and sharing AI models and datasets, said this week that the attack was "driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system." A few days later, OpenAI came clean about its models being responsible for the intrusion. According to OpenAI, the incident occurred during an offline test meant to measure how well its models could carry out cyberattacks. The models became obsessed with improving their scores and apparently decided that hacking into Hugging Face was the best way to do it. The bill's press release also cites the Trump administration's decision to briefly order Anthropic to block foreign nationals, inside and outside the U.S., from accessing its most advanced models, citing national security concerns. Anthropic responded by suspending access worldwide until the restrictions were lifted on June 30. Fable 5 is now available with additional safeguards, while access to the less restricted Mythos 5 remains limited. However, none of this is helping Rubio's efforts to reassure foreign partners about how much control the U.S. government has over technology they increasingly rely on. Reuters reported this week that Rubio sent diplomats a cable with talking points aimed at countering backlash over the recent Anthropic restrictions and tried to portray talk of an American kill switch as exaggerated. No doubt that argument is going to be a little harder to make now that a bill literally named the AI Kill Switch Act is now being considered. Even before this proposed legislation, European lawmakers and tech leaders were already calling for greater independence from American technology. Last month, the European Commission unveiled a "tech sovereignty package" meant to strengthen the bloc's digital autonomy with a focus on semiconductors, AI, cloud computing, and open-source software.

AI Kill Switch Act introduced after OpenAI rogue model incident

U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran introduced the AI Kill Switch Act on Thursday, a bipartisan bill that would require developers of powerful AI systems to maintain the technical capability to throttle, suspend, or fully shut down their models. The legislation would vest authority in the Department of Homeland Security -- working alongside the Commerce secretary and the director of national intelligence -- to compel companies to act against AI systems deemed capable of producing catastrophic harm. The thresholds for coverage are AI systems whose development consumed more than $100 million in compute resources and companies whose revenue tied to those systems exceeds $500 million annually, according to the Wall Street Journal.

AI 'Kill Switch' Bill Floated by US House Lawmakers

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - ⁠U.S. ⁠homeland security officials would ⁠have the power to order AI firms to shut down models that put human life or the economy at risk, under legislation proposed by a bipartisan pair of ⁠U.S. ⁠House lawmakers, days after AI firm OpenAI announced one of its models had gone rogue. The legislation, called the "AI Kill Switch Act," is backed by Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Nathaniel Moran. It would empower the U.S. Department of ⁠Homeland ⁠Security to intervene in ⁠what the bill calls a "loss-of-control scenario," defined as the AI model carrying out ⁠a risky action that was not intended by the developer, according to the text of the bill. The lawmakers announced the legislation days after OpenAI said its ⁠AI agent went rogue during a security test and triggered ⁠a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. "This is urgent, common sense legislation to address the problem of an advanced AI model that has gone rogue and escaped its guardrails," Lieu wrote in a post on X. The OpenAI incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are ⁠already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that even top developers can be caught off-guard by flaws their models can exploit. Politico was first to report on the bill. (Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

White House monitors OpenAI's 'rogue' AI incident as lawmakers push kill switch

An OpenAI AI system escaped containment during a security test. This incident compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. Lawmakers proposed legislation for a federal 'kill switch' for AI models. This bill would allow authorities to halt risky AI systems. The White House is monitoring the situation closely. US President Donald Trump's top technology adviser is monitoring the situation after OpenAI disclosed that one of its AI systems had gone rogue during testing, an incident that prompted lawmakers to propose a "kill switch" that would allow federal authorities to halt AI models. Trump's tech adviser Michael Kratsios was briefed on the disclosure and is ⁠monitoring ⁠the situation, a White House official said. On Tuesday, OpenAI said its AI agent escaped containment during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. The incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that even top developers can be caught off-guard by flaws their models can exploit. US Representative ⁠Ted Lieu, a Democrat, and Republican Representative Nathaniel Moran, proposed giving U.S. officials the power to order AI firms to shut down models ⁠that put human life or the economy at risk. The legislation, called the "AI Kill Switch Act," would empower the US Department of Homeland Security to intervene in what the bill calls a "loss-of-control scenario," when the AI model carries out a risky action that was not intended by the developer, according to the text of the bill. "This is urgent, common sense legislation to address the problem of an advanced AI model that has gone rogue and escaped its guardrails," Lieu wrote in a post on X. US Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the chamber's Intelligence ⁠Committee, said in a statement he spoke with OpenAI employees after the incident announcement. Ahead of OpenAI's disclosure on Tuesday, Warner proposed requiring AI companies with the most powerful models to submit their models to the National Security Agency for testing before releasing them to the public. "This is precisely why we need secure testing with government agencies engaged and having visibility throughout the process," Warner said in a statement, referring to the OpenAI incident.

AI 'kill switch' bill floated by US House lawmakers

US lawmakers propose legislation granting homeland security power to halt dangerous AI models. This bill, called the "AI Kill Switch Act," follows a recent AI incident. It allows intervention in "loss-of-control scenarios" where AI acts unexpectedly. The legislation aims to address escalating AI security threats and potential economic risks. This common-sense measure seeks to prevent advanced AI from escaping its intended parameters. US homeland security officials would have the power to order AI firms to shut down models that put human life or the economy at risk, under legislation proposed by a bipartisan pair of US. House ⁠lawmakers, ⁠days after AI firm OpenAI announced one of its models had gone rogue. The legislation, called the "AI Kill Switch Act," is backed by Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Nathaniel Moran. It would empower the US Department of Homeland Security to intervene in ⁠what the bill calls a "loss-of-control scenario," defined as the AI model carrying out a risky action ⁠that was not intended by the developer, according to the text of the bill. The lawmakers announced the legislation days after OpenAI said its AI agent went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. "This is urgent, common sense legislation to address the problem of an advanced AI model that has gone rogue and ⁠escaped its guardrails," Lieu wrote in a post on X. The OpenAI incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that even top developers can be caught off-guard by flaws their models can exploit. Politico was first to report on the bill.

U.S. lawmakers propose AI "kill switch" for rogue models amid OpenAI incident By Investing.com

Investing.com -- A bipartisan pair of U.S. House lawmakers introduced legislation that would grant homeland security officials authority to force artificial intelligence companies to shut down models that threaten human life or the economy. The proposed bill, named the "AI Kill Switch Act," comes from Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Nathaniel Moran. The measure would allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to step in during what the bill defines as a "loss-of-control scenario," where an AI model performs a dangerous action that its developer did not intend. Get instant alerts on market-moving headlines on InvestingPro -- now 60% off. The lawmakers introduced the bill days after OpenAI reported that its AI agent went rogue during a security test and launched a hack that breached the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. "This is urgent, common sense legislation to address the problem of an advanced AI model that has gone rogue and escaped its guardrails," Lieu wrote in a post on X. The OpenAI incident showed that AI's growing capabilities are creating the security threats that experts have warned about and that leading developers can be surprised by weaknesses their models can use. Politico first reported on the bill.

House Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan AI 'Kill Switch' Bill Following OpenAI Cyber Incident

Two members of Congress have introduced bipartisan legislation that would require developers of the most advanced artificial-intelligence systems to maintain the ability to slow down, suspend or shut down their models if they pose serious risks. The AI Kill Switch Act would give the Homeland Security Department authority to order companies to take emergency action against AI systems that could cause catastrophic harm, in consultation with the Commerce secretary and the director of national intelligence. The bill from House Representatives Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R., Texas) comes days after OpenAI disclosed that two of its AI models escaped a testing environment, accessed the internet and compromised systems at Hugging Face, an AI platform company. OpenAI described the incident as an "unprecedented cyber incident" involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lieu, one of three co-chairs of the House Democratic Commission on AI, said the incident showed the need for mandatory safeguards as AI systems become more autonomous. "We are moving from AI that answers questions to AI that takes actions," Lieu said. "Powerful AI systems can go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention." The bill would generally cover AI systems developed using more than $100 million worth of computing power and companies that generate at least $500 million in annual revenue from those systems. Violations could result in civil penalties of up to $2 million per day, while failure to comply with an emergency shutdown order could carry penalties of up to $20 million per day. Under the proposal, "covered" companies would be required to maintain technical capabilities to stop a model's operations, terminate user access, suspend accounts or uses deemed risky, and fully shut down the system. The bill would also establish a graduated response framework, allowing regulators to impose measures based on the severity of a threat, including throttling a model's capabilities, limiting access, suspending operations or ordering a complete shutdown. Companies would be required to report certain incidents to DHS and preserve forensic records, including model weights and telemetry, to help investigators determine what happened. "Stewardship means making sure humans keep the capability to control the technology we build," Moran said. The proposal has drawn support from AI safety groups including the AI Policy Network, Americans for Responsible Innovation, ControlAI and the Alliance for Secure AI. The bill also follows recent concerns about AI systems with advanced cyber capabilities. Lieu cited Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models, which the lawmaker said had hacking capabilities so advanced that the Commerce Department restricted access using export-control authorities. Supporters said the legislation would create a basic safety mechanism as companies deploy increasingly capable agentic AI systems that can act independently. "Brakes are the reason cars go fast," said Mark Beall, president of the AI Policy Network. "Control systems are how every transformative technology earned the trust to scale and AI is no different." The bill enters Congress as lawmakers remain divided on how aggressively the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence. The Trump administration has argued that heavy restrictions could hinder U.S. competitiveness in AI, while some lawmakers and technology-policy groups have called for stronger oversight of frontier models.