Anthropic asked courts for the power to shut down its own models

Anthropic told California governor Gavin Newsom it supports giving courts the power to suspend AI models that pose a near-term risk of catastrophic harm, in a letter responding to his September executive order on AI oversight and shutdown controls. Under the proposal, the state attorney general could ask a court to halt a model’s deployment, internal use, or further development.

The lab also proposed independent safety evaluators embedded inside AI companies with access comparable to internal risk staff, paid through a state-administered fund rather than by the companies themselves, and risk reports from large developers at least every six months. OpenAI sent Newsom a similar letter last week backing shutdown controls and embedded auditors — but stopped short of endorsing government power to block a high-risk model.