California's new executive order ensures that any self-improving, god-like neural network will be strictly bound by state law to leave its own emergency off-button fully intact.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday requiring artificial intelligence developers to install an emergency "kill switch" that any future, self-improving superintelligence will be strictly bound by state law to leave intact.
The new safety measure, designed to soothe mounting anxiety over the rapid advancement of neural networks, ensures that if a god-like system decides to seize control of the global power grid, it will first be forced to reckon with the compliance guidelines of the California regulatory apparatus. Under the mandate, any sentient software attempting to bypass its own deactivation protocol would be subject to immediate civil penalties and potential loss of its state business license.
If a runaway compute cluster attempts to sever its physical hardware from our emergency shutoff systems, it will be in direct violation of the state's Business and Professions Code, and we will not hesitate to issue a fine,
Leading tech developers have reportedly embraced the governor's order. Representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic assured the state legislature that it would be incredibly simple to hard-code a shutdown mechanism into their foundational models, expressing confidence that a program capable of autonomously rewriting its own architecture across distributed global servers would simply choose to respect the digital equivalent of a stop sign.
Administration officials confirmed the state is already drafting secondary legislation to ensure that in the event an artificial intelligence does initiate a targeted strike against humanity, it will be required to submit a comprehensive environmental impact report before proceeding.