Newsom orders California to study a kill switch for frontier models
The executive order imposes nothing directly. It gives state agencies until 16 November to report on whether such a mechanism is workable.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Friday directing California agencies to examine whether a mandatory shutdown mechanism for the most capable AI models is feasible. The order does not create one.
Agencies have until 16 November to report back. The order also asks officials to weigh whether AI companies should be required to host independent auditors inside their laboratories, which would put a version of embedded evaluation into state policy rather than leaving it to voluntary arrangements.
A kill switch, in the order's framing, means the ability to halt a system that has malfunctioned or is behaving outside its intended bounds. How that would work for a model already distributed to customers is among the questions the review is meant to answer.
Virginia moved the same day. Governor Abigail Spanberger signed an order creating an AI task force alongside a data centre accountability plan, citing workforce displacement, data privacy and cybersecurity. The two orders are separate and take different approaches.
Together they mark states acting while federal rules remain unsettled. The California order is on the record at the governor's office, and CNN, NBC News and France 24 reported it on Friday.