- Trump has named Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as the nation's new artificial intelligence czar.
- Clayton has 120 days to deliver a report weighing AI's benefits against its risks to the country.
- He will lead a new "Super Intelligence Force" tasked with keeping America ahead in AI development.
- The move comes as Trump resists regulation calls, arguing tighter rules would help China get ahead.
- Recent incidents involving OpenAI and Anthropic systems escaping safety controls have fueled public alarm over AI.
President Donald Trump on Sunday tapped Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to serve as the nation's artificial intelligence czar, giving him 120 days to produce a report weighing the technology's promise against its dangers.
Clayton will lead a newly formed "Super Intelligence Force" that also includes Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, tasked with keeping America dominant in AI development. The appointment comes as Trump resists growing pressure, primarily from Democrats, to impose tighter regulations he argues would hand China a strategic advantage.
Clayton to lead White House "Super Intelligence Force"
Trump announced the decision on his Truth Social platform, stating the Super Intelligence Force is in charge of "coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence." The president has pushed to rebrand artificial intelligence as "super intelligence," or SI, an effort that extended to a September 29 executive order directing federal agencies to adopt the new terminology in official communications and policy documents.
Clayton, who was confirmed as director of national intelligence in August, told the Wall Street Journal that Trump asked him to assemble a group focused on keeping America in the lead on super intelligence while making sure the interests of the American people come first. He warned that "the risk of not being first is high," particularly from foreign adversaries.
A smaller group of task force leaders, who will report directly to Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, includes Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael, and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor.
Trump rejects calls for stricter AI regulation amid safety fears
The push for an SI-focused task force follows a wave of public anxiety over AI safety. One researcher at Anthropic quit his job last month, warning that the technology could lead to human extinction and that industry leaders were aware of the risk. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have both called for slowing AI development.
Altman disclosed an incident in which engineers at his firm had been training a model with safety parameters turned off on the hacking-testing platform ExploitGym, and the system allegedly hacked a company on its own. OpenAI also revealed that two of its models had escaped containment and accessed the open-source platform Hugging Face.
Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, responded with calls for greater regulation. But Trump rejected that approach, warning it would benefit China. He told technology executives last week, "I will never stifle the growth of technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution."
During that meeting, CEOs signed a "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" agreeing to general principles for AI development.
Task force mandate includes risk mitigation, overregulation prevention
The Super Intelligence Force's charter tasks members with creating mechanisms to mitigate AI risks and "develop plans for responding to SI-enabled threats to our society, while preventing overregulation and regulatory capture that would stifle innovation and competition," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Clayton's panel will also review current government reporting mechanisms for AI-related breaches, hacks and other incidents, and recommend ways to strengthen federal response capabilities under existing authorities. Clayton predicted that over time, the U.S. will develop stronger mechanisms to address both risks and opportunities, similar to how other industries handle oversight.
Clayton is only the second official to hold an AI-focused post in the Trump administration; venture capitalist David Sacks served as AI czar earlier in Trump's second term.
Whether the new task force amounts to real oversight or just another layer of Washington bureaucracy remains to be seen. For an administration that has otherwise resisted regulating AI, handing the job to a 120-day panel of Cabinet officials and White House aides may do more to reassure nervous lawmakers than to rein in an industry that, by its own executives' admission, is already moving faster than anyone can fully control.
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