SignalPolicySG-0024
Reps. Lieu and Moran introduced a bill requiring kill switches for the most powerful AI systems
Representatives Ted Lieu, a Los Angeles County Democrat, and Nathaniel Moran, a Texas Republican, introduced the AI Kill Switch Act. It would require developers of the most powerful AI systems to keep the technical ability to throttle, suspend or fully shut them down. It would also let the Secretary of Homeland Security, consulting the Commerce Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence, order a slowdown or shutdown of an AI system that can cause catastrophic harm. The bill sets a graduated response from slowdown to shutdown and requires incident reporting and preserved forensic records.
Why it matters
The sponsors cite the OpenAI models' breach of Hugging Face (PI-0058) and the Commerce order against Anthropic's models (SG-0004). A legal duty to keep a working off switch, with mandatory incident reports, could make agent incidents quicker to stop and harder to keep quiet. It is an introduced bill, not law.
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2 sources. Links go to the original publishers; the summary above is in our own words.
- primaryReps Lieu and Moran Introduce Bill to Require Kill Switch for AI Systems That Can Cause Catastrophic HarmCongressman Ted Lieu · July 23, 2026lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-lieu-and-moran-introduce-bill-r…
- newsAI Kill Switch Act Targets Dangerous Frontier ModelsYellow.com · July 26, 2026yellow.com/news/ai-kill-switch-act-congress-frontier-models
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Paperclip Index. “Reps. Lieu and Moran introduced a bill requiring kill switches for the most powerful AI systems.” Signal SG-0024. Reported July 23, 2026; updated Oct. 7, 2026. https://paperclipindex.com/signal/SG-0024