President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a federal “Super Intelligence Force” will assess artificial intelligence risks and recommend the government’s role in regulating the technology. Meanwhile, major AI companies faced questions in New York about safety, liability and public accountability.
The task force, led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, has 120 days to assess AI’s risks and opportunities. It will report directly to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The announcement puts decisions about U.S. AI strategy before a White House-led group as firms keep developing systems that, according to researchers and former industry employees, pose unresolved security and safety concerns.
Who sets the rules
Clayton said the group would examine existing laws and possible congressional action, work with the AI industry and develop plans for AI-enabled threats. It will also review how the government receives and responds to AI-related breaches, hacks, jailbreaks and other incidents. Clayton said the force wouldn’t adopt rules that could stifle innovation and competition.
“The risk of not being first is high,” Clayton told The Wall Street Journal. He said being first would better enable the government to address risks from adversaries “on behalf of the American people.” Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor also serve on the task force. Its report is expected in February.
Trump has called concerns about AI risks “hoaxes” and rejected global efforts to police AI as overly authoritarian, while saying his priority is keeping the United States ahead of China. Clayton echoed that priority in a television interview last month. Matt Pearl, a former director of emerging technology at the National Security Council during the Biden administration, said intelligence-community involvement could help “separate facts about our adversaries’ capabilities from marketing materials about AI companies’ capabilities.”
Brian O’Neill, a former senior executive at the CIA, called Clayton’s appointment “in some respects window dressing.” He said Ferguson’s and Michael’s participation pointed toward economic, regulatory, scientific and domestic-policy questions rather than national security functions. O’Neill warned that “any report will become stale the day after delivery.” Its lasting value, he said, would depend on recommendations for oversight and clear responsibility.
Companies resist guarantees
At a New York City Council hearing on Oct. 5, leaders from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and Google couldn’t quantify the risk of a worst-case catastrophic AI event. OpenAI’s head of policy development and operation, Morgan Dwyer, said she didn’t know whether the risk was 1%, 10% or 20%, but that “none of these levels is remotely acceptable.” Council Speaker Julie Menin called the answer “flippant, at best” and asked how companies could know their products were safe if they couldn’t measure potential risks.
The companies described their safety efforts but didn’t guarantee their models would always obey safeguards or accept legal responsibility for resulting harm. “It is not possible for me to commit or guarantee that any technology is without risk,” Dwyer said. Anthropic head Logan Graham said, “Candidly, the science of doing this is fundamentally hard and unsettled.” Google’s global director of AI and emergency policy, Alice Friend, said promising perfection wasn’t possible with any product. Menin replied that the council was asking for “accountability, transparency and safety overall.”
Friend said Google believes existing legal frameworks apply to AI: “if it’s illegal without AI, it’s still illegal with AI.” OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta didn’t directly answer Menin’s hypothetical about legal responsibility for serious financial harm, compromised sensitive data, physical injury or death.
Public concerns and proposed oversight
All 51 members of the New York City Council attended the hearing and introduced 10 proposed pieces of legislation concerning AI. One proposal would create a whistleblower incentive program offering up to 25% of proceeds recovered from a filed complaint. Another would require a “kill switch” in any AI system deployed in the city. The council issued a subpoena on Sept. 28 to compel SpaceX to testify after the company was asked to appear but didn’t.
The hearing followed a White House AI accord signed less than a week earlier by executives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, Google, Nvidia and SpaceX, who promised to self-regulate their development of the technology. Menin said, “Congress has failed to act, and the federal government has focused on the self-regulation of the leading AI firms.” New York’s RAISE Act requires developers to publish and maintain safety plans before deploying models and report safety incidents to the state within 72 hours. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also enacted AI regulations, including a ban on AI in elementary and middle schools.
Public opinion figures in the article reflect resistance to AI’s expansion: a Murmuration study found that 6% of Americans believed AI would mostly strengthen democracy, while 69% of respondents in an NBC News Decision Desk survey opposed construction of AI data centers in their local area. The dispute over AI governance now spans federal leadership, city and state rules, and private companies’ promises to police their own systems.