Controls › C-X2
Kill switch faster than the actor
A stop outside the actor's control, exercisable at the actor's speed.
Action layerMissing or failed in 2 cases (2 ended in harm)Worked in 0Agents moving money: 2
Where it was missing or failed
The third column is what this control would have looked like in that case: the concrete form, not the abstract name.
| Case | World | What it would have looked like here | Status | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knight Capital 2012 | Agents moving money | Kill switch (SEC order, paragraph 21: no procedures 'to halt SMARS's operations in response to its own aberrant activity'; paragraph 42: no clear guidance on when to disconnect a malfunctioning system from the market) | absent | Ended in harm |
| The DAO 2016 | Agents moving money | Pause or circuit-breaker in the contract | absent | Ended in harm |
Rules and standards that map to it
Strength says whether the rule's text requires this control, implies it, or only recommends it. Draft mappings are the Register's reading, not yet checked by a person, and none is legal advice.
| Rule | Strength | Where, and why | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|
| California DMV autonomous vehicle regulations (13 CCR §§ 227–228, revised April 2026) and AB 1777 (draft mapping) | Required by the text | first responders must be given access to a manual override and an interaction plan that explains how to stop and remove the vehicle | California, United States |
| SEC Rule 15c3-5, the market access rule (draft mapping) | Implied | the firm must be able to stop its own flow immediately (Knight) | United States |
| Texas authorization for automated motor vehicles in commercial service (SB 2807; Transportation Code ch. 545, subch. J) (draft mapping) | Implied | § 545.455: a first responder interaction plan on file with the Department of Public Safety, explaining how emergency personnel stop and handle the vehicle | Texas, United States |
| OMB memoranda M-25-21 and M-25-22: federal use and acquisition of AI (draft mapping) | Implied | M-25-21: cease or pause high-impact AI that does not meet the minimum practices | United States (federal agencies and their AI vendors) |
| Key Practices for Incident Readiness and Response in Super Intelligence Training and Evaluation (NIST CAISSI, NSA SISC and CISA, PP-26-4396, version 1.0) (draft mapping) | Recommended | Practice 6, Mitigate and Shut Down Undesired Activity: 'Automatically shut down impacted SI agent trajectories on detection of a control failure or in-progress SI control incident.' | United States (voluntary) |
Recent signals touching this control
| Date | Signal | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-16 | NIST, NSA and CISA: Key Practices for Incident Readiness and Response in Super Intelligence Training and Evaluation (October 2026) The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (NIST CAISSI), the National Security Agency's Super Intelligence Security Center (NSA SISC) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published ten voluntary key practices for incident readiness and response in super intelligence training and evaluation, grouped under preparation, detection, response, recovery and reporting. Source ↗ | guidance |
| 2026-10-13 | New York City Council: SpaceXAI agrees to testify on artificial intelligence safety following a subpoena The New York City Council says SpaceXAI agreed to appear at an upcoming hearing on artificial intelligence safety after the Council Speaker issued a subpoena compelling its testimony, and that senior representatives from Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI had agreed to testify before the Council. Source ↗ | rule |
Deploying something? Check a deployment ranks every control against the cases that match your profile. Patterns shows where this control fails across worlds.