Americans are growing worried that AI will wipe out millions of jobs or even humanity.
This is becoming a major issue in the November election.
John Kennedy proposed an AI kill switch to stop this doomsday scenario.
John Kennedy Proposes AI Kill Switch Bill
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon ignited a global firestorm with a thread on X announcing he resigned from the company over the dangers research into AI superintelligence posed.
Coxon wrote that everyone involved in AI understood there was a chance this technology could go rogue and bring about mass extinction by 2030.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded with a lengthy essay in which he admitted that AI superintelligence could provoke a cataclysmic economic or mass-casualty event and called for a slowdown in AI superintelligence research.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk agreed, and calls grew for the government to develop AI guardrails to warn off an apocalypse like in the “Terminator” film series, except this time in real life.
Polls show 81 percent of Americans support AI regulation, and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy proposed legislation requiring an AI kill switch to shut down the technology if it grew beyond human control.
Kennedy told the Daily Caller AI was like a new species with intelligence that could exceed humanity, but lacked the heart and conscience that would prevent it from deciding humans no longer served a purpose, and it would be more efficient to get rid of them.
“The other risk that has garnered most of the attention is that we’re not dealing with a tool to make our lives better. We’re dealing with a brand new species that acts like a human, but without most of the values that decent humans share. And that is that AI would, through the recursive self improvement, would start acting on its own in an amoral or immoral way,” Kennedy stated. “To me, until we can figure out how to address that, if indeed it’s a serious problem, to me, the answer is to ask all the AI models to have a kill switch.”
What the Kill Switch Does
Kennedy’s bill wouldn’t create a government-controlled kill switch to shut down rogue AI, as Kennedy believes that is also a recipe for disaster.
Instead, Kennedy’s bill would require companies to build the kill switch into their AI that the company could employ if AI turned into something like Skynet from the Terminator movies.
“Now I don’t know why they all don’t have kill switches right now, but that’s all my bill would do,” Kennedy added. “And it wouldn’t put the federal government in charge of the kill switch. It would say every AI model has to have a kill switch, so they can shut those puppies down if they start acting like the Terminator.”
Kennedy explained that a government kill switch wouldn’t pass Congress, and even if it could, President Trump would veto it anyway since he opposes regulating AI.
“If I put the federal government in charge of the kill switch, it won’t pass, and the president will probably veto it. The president is not too keen on AI regulation,” Kennedy continued.
This issue isn’t going away.
The debate over AI is in its early stages and will only grow as the 2026 campaign heats up and then gives way to the 2028 Presidential Election.
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