We investigate how a Higgs mechanism could be responsible for the
emergence of gravity in extensions of Einstein theory. In this scenario, at high
energies, symmetry restoration could “turn off” gravity, with dramatic implications
for cosmology and quantum gravity. The sense in which gravity is muted depends
on the details of the implementation. In the most extreme case gravity’s dynamical
degrees of freedom would only be unleashed after the Higgs field acquires a non-trivial
vacuum expectation value, with gravity reduced to a topological field theory in the
symmetric phase. We might also identify the Higgs and the Brans-Dicke fields in such
a way that in the unbroken phase Newton’s constant vanishes, decoupling matter and
gravity. We discuss the broad implications of these scenarios.