President Donald Trump placed a new artificial intelligence task force under his authority on Sunday, appointing Jay Clayton, his director of national intelligence, to lead it. The group will report to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. People who’ll live with AI’s consequences appear on a list of outreach targets, but the chain of command ends at the White House.
Trump calls the group the “Super Intelligence Force” and says he has tried to rebrand AI as “super intelligence.” He chose the name. He also set the mission: coordinate federal efforts to keep the United States ahead in the technology.
Who Holds the Levers
Trump said in a social media post that the task force would coordinate federal efforts “to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence, which many say is bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet, and will protect the interests, and improve the lives, of all Americans.” The language promises broad public benefit, but the reporting line runs directly to Trump and Wiles.
The other named members are Federal Trade Commission chairman Andrew Ferguson, Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, and Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management. The group brings officials from federal institutions together around a technology Trump says is larger than earlier transformations. Officials are named as members; the consumers and public interest groups it says it will contact aren’t.
Self-Policing, From the Top
Trump announced the task force after meeting with top AI company executives at the White House the previous week. At that meeting, he said the executives had signed a voluntary accord to effectively self-police development of the technology.
That arrangement pairs the companies’ voluntary commitments with a government task force led by a senior administration official. The announcement describes an accord, not a binding rule, and says companies would police their own development. It doesn’t describe enforcement powers, specific restrictions or penalties. The structure is plain: corporate executives make a voluntary pledge, while officials Trump selected coordinate the federal response and report back to him.
The Public as an Audience
Trump said the task force would reach out to consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies. The announcement doesn’t spell out what those conversations will cover, what decisions participants could shape or what the task force would deliver to them.
It names no grassroots response, mutual-aid effort, direct action, election proposal or legislative solution. The public appears as a set of groups to be contacted, while federal officials hold the authority to coordinate and the reporting line runs to the president and his chief of staff. The task force says it aims to protect and improve lives; its structure shows who gets to steer.