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.

Read more at Wall Street Journal