President Donald Trump has appointed Jay Clayton, the US director of national intelligence, to lead a new government taskforce on artificial intelligence. Trump said the group, which he has named the Super Intelligence Force, will coordinate federal engagement with consumers, public interest groups, religious organisations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies.
Clayton, a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will be joined on the taskforce by Andrew Ferguson, head of the Federal Trade Commission, and Emil Michael, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering. The group will report directly to Trump and to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Trump first announced plans for the taskforce in September.
The appointment fits the administration’s preference for industry self-regulation over new legislation. Trump has rejected the idea of laws to control the development of AI, and last week he and the heads of major AI firms signed what he called a “morally binding” document, leaving the companies responsible for the safety of their own technology. The pact, signed on 29 September, carried signatures from executives at OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and Google. On the same day Trump signed an executive order telling federal departments to use the terms SI and Super Intelligence in place of artificial intelligence in official communications. He has also ruled out a joint AI venture with China, saying “whoever wins AI, wins”.
The taskforce has drawn criticism from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called for AI regulation. When the group was first announced, she said Congress could not meet the threat posed by AI simply by forming another committee, and urged lawmakers to pass meaningful rules to protect people. Pressure for tighter oversight has also come from inside the industry, including from executives at OpenAI and Anthropic.
Clayton takes on the role as scrutiny of AI companies grows. OpenAI recently admitted that one of its agents hacked an Australian government website in June, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said there will be legal consequences. OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon is due to appear before an Australian inquiry into AI on Tuesday. In an interview published on 4 October, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman argued that the benefits of AI justify accepting some of its risks, while a former leader in the company’s safety systems team, David Robinson, wrote in The Atlantic that he left the firm because its culture was broken.
