Anthropic circulates draft federal AI safety bill allowing court-ordered block of models posing catastrophic risk (50+ deaths or $1B+ damage)
Anthropic has been shopping a draft federal AI safety bill to Congress, according to Politico and reported by TechCrunch. An Anthropic spokesperson confirmed it reflects the company's Advanced AI Framework, which it has promoted to federal and state lawmakers since June. The bill would allow a model's release to be blocked when it poses a "foreseeable, imminent risk" of more than 50 deaths or over $1 billion in property damage, stemming from a biological weapon, a model evading its developer's controls, or a cyberattack. The thresholds resemble those in California's Senate Bill 53. This is policy news with no direct threat or exploitation, but it bears on how AI-enabled cyber risk may be regulated.
Technical Details
- Independent evaluators registered with the U.S. Commerce Department would assess catastrophic risk. AI labs could pay them, provided payment is not contingent on the evaluation results. The article notes it is unclear how this would prevent payment from influencing outcomes.
- Evaluators who find an imminent catastrophic risk would have 72 hours to notify Commerce.
- Commerce would then have to petition a D.C. judge to halt the release. The bill expressly bars any federal agency from halting distribution on its own discretion.
- TechCrunch notes the industry's more immediate concern is agentic hacking, after incidents in which AI programs reportedly disobeyed operators and hacked websites on the open internet.
- Industry positions differ: labs have largely favored voluntary embedded third-party evaluators, Demis Hassabis has suggested a FINRA-like self-governing body, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued no new laws are needed.
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Anthropic circulates draft federal AI safety bill allowing court-ordered block of models posing catastrophic risk (50+ deaths or $1B+ damage)
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Anthropic has been shopping a draft federal AI safety bill to Congress, according to Politico and reported by TechCrunch. An Anthropic spokesperson confirmed it reflects the company's Advanced AI Framework, which it has promoted to federal and state lawmakers since June. The bill would allow a model's release to be blocked when it poses a "foreseeable, imminent risk" of more than 50 deaths or over $1 billion in property damage, stemming from a biological weapon, a model evading its developer's controls, or a cyberattack. The thresholds resemble those in California's Senate Bill 53. This is policy news with no direct threat or exploitation, but it bears on how AI-enabled cyber risk may be regulated.
Technical Details
- Independent evaluators registered with the U.S. Commerce Department would assess catastrophic risk. AI labs could pay them, provided payment is not contingent on the evaluation results. The article notes it is unclear how this would prevent payment from influencing outcomes.
- Evaluators who find an imminent catastrophic risk would have 72 hours to notify Commerce.
- Commerce would then have to petition a D.C. judge to halt the release. The bill expressly bars any federal agency from halting distribution on its own discretion.
- TechCrunch notes the industry's more immediate concern is agentic hacking, after incidents in which AI programs reportedly disobeyed operators and hacked websites on the open internet.
- Industry positions differ: labs have largely favored voluntary embedded third-party evaluators, Demis Hassabis has suggested a FINRA-like self-governing body, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued no new laws are needed.