Anthropic says it will rewrite the state law preemption clause of the leaked federal AI safety bill draft

Anthropic told U.S. lawmakers it will rewrite the state law preemption clause in its self-drafted federal AI safety bill draft, after the leaked text published by Politico drew days of criticism from the AI safety community. The draft provides that the government can only block model release or use under narrow conditions such as when risk is foreseeable and imminent, losses exceed 1 billion USD, or more than 50 people are killed or seriously injured, and requires the Department of Commerce to apply to a federal court. The draft would also preempt some state laws, involving public disclosure, third-party evaluation and incident reporting, but does not touch child safety and civil rights law. Critics compared it with the bipartisan FRONTIER Act proposed in July, calling it weaker: evaluators have no licensing standards and can self-certify, and models are also harder to block. Anthropic's head of federal affairs Anthony Cimino said on X that the preemption wording is not precise enough and will be updated.