Anthropic quietly pitches lawmakers its own AI safety bill

Anthropic representatives have quietly pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, Politico reported on Friday, citing three people with knowledge of the efforts.

The bill would let the government block a model’s release or use only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people. The risk would have to stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer’s controls, or a cyberattack, according to CNA.

Under the draft, independent evaluators registered with the Commerce Department would periodically evaluate labs and their frontier models. Labs could pay evaluators provided the payment is not tied to the outcome, and evaluators must report any “imminent enumerated risk” to Commerce within 72 hours of completing an assessment.

The Commerce Department could request a judge to halt a model. The language explicitly prohibits any other US government department, agency, or officer from suspending development, deployment, or internal use; a federal judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia could order the suspension, the Economic Times reported.

An Anthropic spokesperson told Reuters the bill reflects proposals in Anthropic’s “Advanced AI Framework” released earlier this year. It would grant the government the “ability to block or deter dangerous deployments of the most powerful models,” while requiring developers to test frontier models, be transparent about their findings, and have them independently evaluated.