Anthropic pitches AI safety bill that may block a model if 50+ people could be killed

Over the past year, concerns have swirled over the potential dangers posed by artificial intelligence, and debates have raged over the proper path for AI safety. Now, Anthropic appears to have put forth its own vision for how the government might regulate its industry. Politico recently reported that the AI lab has been shopping around a new draft bill on AI safety that it hopes Congress might consider adopting.

The legislation posits certain scenarios in which the release of an AI model could be blocked from distribution. Those scenarios involve a “foreseeable, imminent risk” — one in which over 50 people are at risk of dying or if over a billion dollars in property damage could result, Politico writes. The catastrophic risk in question must “stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer’s controls or a cyberattack,” the outlet notes.

The metrics offered here — 50 people and a billion dollars — are similar to those in a piece of California legislation that was recently passed into law, Senate Bill 53, which similarly…