A bill introduced in the House Thursday (July 23) would require artificial intelligence (AI) developers to maintain the technical capacity to shut down their AI systems and would authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to order such a shutdown.
The sponsors of the AI Kill Switch Act, Rep. Ted W. Lieu, D-Calif., and Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, said in a Thursday press release that the recent hacking incident carried out by OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol model highlights the need for the bill.
Lieu said in the release: “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. Unfortunately, powerful AI systems can go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention.”
Moran said in the release: “Stewardship means making sure humans keep the capability to control the technology we build. This is exactly the kind of issue that needs serious attention and achievable policy, and I’m glad to work across the aisle with Congressman Lieu toward a solution.”
The AI Kill Switch Act would apply to the developers of the most powerful AI systems, according to the release. It would require these developers to maintain the technical capability to throttle, suspend or fully shut down the covered AI systems.
The bill would also authorize the Secretary of the DHS, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence, to order a slowdown or shutdown of an AI system that can cause “catastrophic harm,” the release said.
The press release included statements of support for the AI Kill Switch Act from leaders of The AI Policy Network, The Alliance for Secure AI, Americans for Responsible Innovation, ControlAI and the Future of Life Institute.
OpenAI announced Tuesday (July 21) that a combination of its GPT-5.6 Sol model and a more capable pre-release model caused a cyber incident as the company was testing their cyber capabilities. The AI-powered data breach targeted, and was reported a week earlier by, Hugging Face, whose platform hosts AI datasets.
In the Thursday press release announcing the AI Kill Switch Act, Lieu and Moran also pointed to the June 12 incident in which the government used an export control directive to call on Anthropic to suspend some access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models. The congressmen said in the release that the Department of Commerce had to use the export law “awkwardly” to shut down those advanced models.
