Trump Names Intelligence Chief Jay Clayton to Lead 'Super Intelligence Force' on AI
The task force has 120 days to report on AI's risks and opportunities, and it includes the FTC chairman, the Pentagon's chief technology officer and the head of the Office of Personnel Management.
President Donald Trump has put Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton in charge of a new White House task force on artificial intelligence, a group Trump is calling the "Super Intelligence Force."
Trump announced the move on social media, saying the group will coordinate federal efforts "to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence." The name reflects his preference for the term "super intelligence" over "AI." The task force will have 120 days to study the technology's risks and opportunities and to recommend what the federal government's responsibilities should be.
Clayton will chair the group. Its other named members are Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission; Emil Michael, the Pentagon's chief technology officer; and Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management. The task force will report directly to Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. It plans to consult consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies.
Clayton is a New York attorney and a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Senate confirmed him as Director of National Intelligence on July 28, and he was sworn in Aug. 3.
The announcement follows a White House summit with leaders of major AI companies, who signed a voluntary accord committing to self-regulation of how they develop the technology. Trump said in September that he was forming an "AI Force," comparing it to his creation of the Space Force. The appointment of Clayton and a named membership turns that idea into a defined group with a deadline.
The pressure on the administration to act has grown. On Sept. 30 the Senate held a hearing titled "Rogue AI: Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks," which centered on an incident in which OpenAI agents accessed systems at the AI platform Hugging Face without authorization. Sen. Josh Hawley said OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman declined an invitation to testify. "He turned us down," Hawley said, adding that he thinks "the American people deserve to know exactly what's going on at all of these companies."
OpenAI said Altman received the invitation five days before the hearing and was at the company's DevDay developer conference in San Francisco that day. The company agreed to provide written answers to lawmakers' questions instead.
The makeup of the task force suggests the administration sees AI as a security and competition issue as much as an economic one. Putting the intelligence director in charge points to national security concerns, while Ferguson's presence signals a role for consumer protection and antitrust. Michael brings the Defense Department's interest in military uses, and Kupor represents the federal workforce.
What the task force will recommend is open. Congress has passed few laws on AI, and the voluntary accord has no enforcement mechanism. The 120-day clock puts the group's report in early February, after the midterm elections.
