The AI Kill Switch Act is repeating the Clipper Chip’s mistakes
Op-ed argues the AI Kill Switch Act repeats the Clipper Chip's mistake by mandating backdoors into frontier AI systems.
The op-ed criticizes the AI Kill Switch Act, sponsored by Reps. Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran, which would let CISA require frontier AI labs to build the ability to throttle, suspend, or shut down their systems. The author compares this to the 1993 Clipper Chip, whose Law Enforcement Access Field was found flawed in 1994, and argues mandated kill switches would create deliberate weaknesses in AI agents embedded in banking, power grids and other critical infrastructure. It also flags the bill's exemption of red-teaming incidents and CAISI's incomplete agent security standards, recommending mandatory red-teaming and liability frameworks instead.
The push to designate AI as the next critical infrastructure sector
Americans for Responsible Innovation report urges designating AI models, companies and supporting infrastructure as critical infrastructure with CISA as sector lead.
A report from the nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation calls for the federal government to declare the AI sector — including frontier model designs, model weights, datacenters, AI hardware and semiconductors — the 17th critical infrastructure sector, with CISA as the lead agency for sector cyberthreats. The authors argue AI is concentrated among a handful of foundation models and interdependent with other sectors, so a single attack on the AI stack could cascade widely, citing incidents like Iranian drone attacks on Amazon datacenters. Former DHS officials note the designation would unlock federal resources such as CDM access and threat intelligence, but warn that picking a lead agency could trigger a bureaucratic turf war with Commerce and Treasury.