AI 'kill switch' bill floated by US House lawmakers

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 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.


-Reuters