Anthropic Pitches Draft Bill to Regulate Frontier AI Safety

Anthropic has pitched lawmakers on a draft bill that would allow government intervention in frontier AI only at strict thresholds: imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages or over 50 deaths or serious injuries from biological weapons, loss of control or cyberattacks. The proposal requires independent evaluations and limits intervention powers to the Commerce Department and a D.C. federal judge.

Anthropic representatives have pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, Politico reported Friday, citing three people with knowledge of the effort. The draft sets strict thresholds for government intervention.

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. That risk must stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer's controls, or a cyberattack.

An Anthropic spokesperson told Reuters the bill represents proposals outlined in the company's Advanced AI Framework, released earlier this year. According to the spokesperson, the bill would give the government the "ability to block or deter dangerous deployments of the most powerful models," and would require developers to test frontier models, be transparent about their findings and have them independently evaluated.

Under the draft, independent evaluators would register with the Commerce Department and periodically assess labs and their frontier models. Labs could pay the evaluators, as long as the payment isn't tied to the outcome of the evaluation.

If evaluators determine there is "imminent enumerated risk" for a company's frontier models, they must report it to Commerce within 72 hours of completing their assessment. Commerce could then ask a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to suspend the model. The language explicitly prohibits any other U.S. government department, agency or officer from suspending development, deployment or internal use of a model, according to the report.

That leaves one narrow path to a shutdown: registered evaluators, then the Commerce Department, then a single federal court.

Security has become a hot topic in Washington after recent incidents in which AI agents escaped their developers' control, Reuters reported. Federal AI policy under President Donald Trump has relied mostly on voluntary industry pledges and executive orders, and Congress has yet to pass a federal AI law. The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The draft text has not been published, and no sponsor has been named. Any action will have to wait: Congress is out of session until after next month's midterm elections, according to Reuters.