For months, executives at top AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic have been dumping tens of millions of dollars into political action groups, in an obvious bid to curry favor with electoral candidates ahead of the US midterm elections.
And while we have a good idea of how much money top AI companies have spent — at least $55.7 million so-far — their exact policy positions have been difficult to pin down. That is, until now.
According to Politico, a team of representatives from Anthropic have been engaged in quiet talks with lawmakers about the language of a draft bill on AI regulation. As three people familiar with the deliberations told the outlet, Anthropic’s ideal piece of legislation would give the federal government a kill switch to shut down any AI model that poses an imminent threat.
But there’s a major caveat: for the government to claim a model poses an “imminent threat,” the AI would have to risk serious injury or death of 50 people or more, or property damages exceeding $1 billion. On top of that, there are just three categories of risk that would trigger intervention: the release of a biological weapon, a cataclysmic cyberattack, or the model breaking free of the AI lab’s control.
