Senate blocks Kennedy bill to require AI developers to install an emergency kill switch

Watch Kennedy's comments here.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) attempted to pass his AI Emergency Button Act through unanimous consent to require artificial intelligence developers to install an emergency kill switch, but an objection from Sen. Rand Paul prevented the bill from passing unanimously.

Key excerpts of Kennedy's speech are below:

"Here is the risk: AI is supposed to be a tool that human beings have control of to make our lives better. But what happens if the AI model, through what's called recursive self-improvement, which basically means it's learning on its own, no longer becomes a tool; it becomes an independent species, separate and apart from human beings that we can't control because it's an independent species? And it doesn't share our values. It doesn't share human values. Now, that has happened. We've read about it in the last three weeks."

. . .

"If you go on a construction site, you're not going to get to go on that site if you don't put a hard hat on. Now, my guess is that there's way less than a 1% chance that if you go on a construction site today that you will get conked in the head. But we said as a society, we don't want to take that risk. So, you have got to wear a hard hat. In my mind, if there is even a 1% chance that one of these AI models can shed its nature as a tool and become an independent species and start doing whatever the hell it wants to do, if there's even a 1% chance, we ought to take it seriously."

. . .

"So, what do we do about it? Well, I've got a bill, and it basically says that if you're going to sell an advanced AI model in the United States of America, it has got to have a kill switch. It doesn't put the federal government, or any government, in charge of the kill switch. It puts the companies who own the model in charge of the kill switch. My bill would rely on them doing the right thing and exercising their own self-interest and using that kill switch when they need it."

Watch Kennedy's remarks here.

Full text of the AI Emergency Button Act is available here.