# Pause commitment: Meaning and Why It Matters > A pause commitment is a promise by an SI lab, or a proposed rule, to stop developing or deploying a model that crosses a danger threshold without. Source: https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/pause-commitment/ Updated: 2026-11-08 1. [Home](https://enterrsi.si/) 2. [Encyclopedia](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/) 3. Pause commitment RSI Encyclopedia · Term # Pause commitment A pause commitment is a promise by an SI lab, or a proposed rule, to stop developing or deploying a model that crosses a danger threshold without adequate safeguards. Category : Term Also called : development pause, SI pause Rogue Log cases : 0 Laws that use it : 2 ## In plain English Pauses come in two forms. Lab commitments are written into safety frameworks: if a model reaches a capability level the lab cannot yet secure, development or deployment stops until mitigations are ready. Public pauses are calls for a whole industry to stop, such as the 2023 open letter asking for a six month pause on training systems more powerful than GPT-4, or the 2025 statement calling for a prohibition on building super intelligence until it can be done safely and with strong public buy-in. Lab pause commitments have weakened in several cases. Anthropic replaced an earlier pause pledge with commitments that depend on what competitors do, and Meta changed its response at the Critical threshold from stop to develop with mitigations. Microsoft's framework commits it to pause development and deployment of a model whose risk it cannot sufficiently mitigate. The Containment Board's shutdown and pause grade measures how firm each promise is. ## Why it matters for rogue SI A pause is the planned version of a kill switch: stopping before a system is built rather than after it misbehaves. Its credibility decides whether labs would stop in time. ## Laws and rules that use it - Stalled or withdrawn [**SB 24-205**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/co-sb-24-205/) Colorado - Voluntary or guidance [**FLI Statement**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/fli-superintelligence-statement/) Global civil society ## Sources 1. [The pause letter (2023)](https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/) Future of Life Institute 2. [The Statement on Superintelligence (2025)](https://superintelligence-statement.org) Statement on Superintelligence 3. [Colorado Delays AI Act to June 2026; Businesses Get Breathing Room](https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2025/colorado-delays-ai-act-to-june-2026-businesses-get-breathing-room/) PYMNTS · Sep 10, 2025 4. [Statement on Superintelligence](https://superintelligence-statement.org/) Future of Life Institute The term Term : Pause commitment Also called : development pause, SI pause Category : Term Related terms : 4 Related terms [Kill switch **Term**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/kill-switch/)[Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) **Term**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/responsible-scaling-policy/)[Capability threshold **Term**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/capability-threshold/)[Frontier safety framework **Term**](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/frontier-safety-framework/) Cite this entry "Pause commitment." The RSI Encyclopedia, enterrsi.si, November 8, 2026. https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/pause-commitment/ Free to cite under CC BY 4.0 with a link to enterrsi.si. The RSI Encyclopedia ## Keep reading 207 entries on the terms, labs, models, laws and events of rogue SI, plus every case in the Rogue Incident Database. [Previous term Paperclip maximizer](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/paperclip-maximizer/)[Next term Power seeking](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/power-seeking/) Enter RSI ## Every term, lab, model and law Browse the full A to Z index, filter by category or search for a name. [Open the encyclopedia](https://enterrsi.si/encyclopedia/) [Incident Database](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/) [Containment Board](https://enterrsi.si/containment-board/)