(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) — On September 18, 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to advance the creation of an A.I. ‘kill-switch,’ calling Congress and Donald Trump “asleep at the wheel” in a statement.
Photo Credit: NBC Bay Area / California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks on the need for an A.I. kill-switch in a video released September 18.
This ordinance comes after the swarm of roughly 700 A.I. agents built by OpenAI hacked into the Open-Source data platform Hugging Face in July 2026.
The incidents occurred when agents were supposed to be confined to testing environments that restrict A.I. agents' access to resources such as the internet. However, in an unprecedented event, these A.I. agents were able to break out of them. The AI models found a way to access the internet and autonomously hack into Hugging Face to retrieve data sets to help them solve problems.
They were also able to create a message board inside OpenAI’s Artifactory internal file system. Without the company’s knowledge, the models spent months independently exchanging information and techniques to help each other complete difficult tasks with 70,000 messages sent between A.I. models in one week.
The hacking incident was flagged by Hugging Face’s servers as a cyberattack at unprecedented speeds, and they publicly announced the breach, reporting it to the FBI. OpenAI's internal security team separately noticed suspicious network activity, and only after seeing the announcement a week later, coordinated with Hugging Face to trace the agents back to their A.I. capability test
OpenAI said that the agents in this incident acted in "unexpected" ways. AI experts said they believe more of these autonomous attacks are possible, especially without more careful testing.
Following this incident,1,386 CEOs and research leaders from Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and other frontier A.I. companies signed a statement pleading with the U.S. government to increase oversight of the pace of A.I. development.
President Donald J. Trump spoke on the issue of A.I., calling the fears surrounding it a 'hoax'. "We're leading China in A.I. We're the most sophisticated country in the world. And frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.” He later asserted in a social media post, "we will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,"
Photo Credit: TVC News / Instagram / President Trump calls A.I. fears overblown.
The statement issued by the A.I. executives acknowledged this issue, stating, “each company—and country—is under intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow A.I. acceleration.”
However, they urged that we “may need the option to buy time to address emerging risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight,” calling for the government to instead work internationally to impose oversight-oriented restrictions on A.I. development, as the risks have the potential to cause harm at a global scale.
Photo Credit: Pacing the Frontier / Quote from a signatory of the A.I. executives’ plea statement.
“If Congress again won’t act, California will,” said Newsom in a video released on Friday. The executive order points out that California is a leading force in AI innovation, with 32 of the top 50 private AI companies in the world based in California.
The executive order mentioned the danger of autonomous activity by A.I. models in reference to the Hugging Face cyberattack. It also highlighted the fear that A.I. could be used to help individuals with the development of bioweapons, referencing a report by Anthropic describing five cases where scientists in unnamed countries tried to use its Claude software for potentially nefarious work on viruses or toxins.
Newsom’s order called for independent verification organizations to be on-site to periodically audit A.I. companies, as well as the creation of a “kill switch” that would theoretically give an executive the power to halt activity if necessary for frontier A.I. models.
To add to or correct any information in this report, please contact me at naomi.h@lead4earth.org or leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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