California set to study AI 'kill switch' | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

The governor of the US state of California has ordered that studies be conducted on a so-called "kill switch" to quickly shut down rogue AI models.

Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Friday that he had signed an executive order to strengthen oversight of AI developers in his state.

Under the order, a group of experts will study mandating that AI companies introduce emergency shutdown mechanisms.

The experts will also consider whether to require AI firms to embed an independent verification organization in their labs to conduct regular audits and evaluations.

The experts are to come up with recommendations within two months.

Newsom said in his statement, "We're going to speed up our work on substantial and responsible AI oversight before it's too late." He added that, "the stakes are too high to wait or delay action."

California is home to the headquarters of cutting-edge AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

Top leaders and researchers of such developers have recently voiced concern over the risk of AI eluding human control, following a series of unintended hacking incidents involving frontier models.

On the other hand, President Donald Trump has tried to downplay the threat posed by AI.