United Kingdom, Sept. 3 -- The House of Lords is considering proposals that would give the UK government a legal "kill switch" for powerful artificial intelligence systems in an emergency.

An amendment to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tim Clement-Jones, would give ministers last-resort powers to shut down AI systems or data centres if they posed a threat to national security, public safety or critical infrastructure.

The amendment is also backed by Conservative peer Baroness Dido Harding, crossbench peer Baroness Beeban Kidron and Labour's Lord Philip Hunt.

Non-profit organisation ControlAI is supporting the proposal.

Under the amendment, the Secretary of State could intervene if an AI ...