Anthropic Proposes AI Safety Bill with Model Block Powers
Anthropic has drafted proposed federal legislation that would allow independent evaluators, registered with the U.S. Commerce Department, to trigger a judicial halt on AI model releases where a foreseeable, imminent risk of mass casualties (50+ deaths) or catastrophic property damage (over $1 billion) is assessed. For defenders, this closes a structural governance gap by introducing a legally defined, pre-release safety gate specifically tied to bioweapon uplift, model control evasion, and cyberattack scenarios — three of the highest-consequence AI risk categories. Significant maturity questions remain around evaluator independence, the sufficiency of a 72-hour notification window, and how the threshold definitions translate into operational evaluation criteria.