California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered a state expert group to examine whether frontier AI developers should be required to maintain a verified “kill switch” and submit to stronger independent oversight. The group must deliver recommendations within two months for possible additions to state law.
The executive order asks the panel to consider resident independent-verification teams, common audit standards for company transparency reports and risk assessments, and routine tests showing that emergency shutdown systems work. It also proposes treating loss-of-control events as critical safety incidents that companies must report. State agencies were directed to accelerate two recently signed laws establishing a registry of AI auditors and a framework for independent safety assessors.
A kill switch is only a proposal at this stage; the order does not itself require companies to install one. Important implementation questions also remain, including what system would be shut down, who could trigger it and how developers would demonstrate that distributed deployments can actually be stopped. Newsom is positioning California’s framework as a model for federal action while Congress is unlikely to pass substantial legislation before the midterm elections. He has also floated a special legislative session, suggesting the expert recommendations could quickly become the basis for a broader state regulatory package.