Anthropic Takes Its AI Safety Proposals to Capitol Hill

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That’s according to a report Friday (Oct. 16) by Politico, which describes the push as a “notable effort” by the AI lab to guide the rules covering its tech.

“This bill represents the proposals outlined in Anthropic’s Advanced AI Framework, which we have been advocating for with federal and state lawmakers since June,” an Anthropic spokesperson told the news outlet. “These are sensible policies we believe Congress should act on.”

According to a draft proposal seen by Politico, the bill would let the government block an AI 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 harming upwards of 50 people.

The bill says the risks must be related to the creation or release of a biological weapon, an AI model evading its developer’s controls, or a cyberattack. In addition, the bill would also call on independent evaluations, registered with the Commerce Department, to periodically review the lab and its frontier models.

If the evaluators conclude there is “imminent enumerated risk” for a company’s frontier models, they must report it to the Commerce Department within 72 hours of finishing their assessment, Politico added.

While many AI labs have reported incidents in which their agents hacked other websites, none have caused any widespread deaths or done more than $1 billion in damages, the report said.

Anthropic’s proposal for Commerce Department-directed AI evaluations is in keeping with the Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act of 2026, a bill introduced by a trio of Senate Democrats.

As covered here last week, that bill joins one from Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that calls for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop standards to protect against catastrophic harms from AI models.

Meanwhile, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s AI Risk Evaluation Act would place the Department of Energy in charge of stress-testing the most powerful AI systems before they are rolled out to the public.

“Regardless of which party ends up holding the gavel on Capitol Hill in January, any AI safety bill is likely to face pushback from the White House,” that report said.

“The Trump administration remains adamantly opposed to mandatory AI regulation, favoring a voluntary approach based on standards developed by the industry. With the industry, the public and many statehouses all clamoring for action, however, White House opposition may not be enough to stop AI safety efforts.”

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