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.