WASHINGTON — President Trump has appointed Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as the administration’s artificial-intelligence czar, tasking him with delivering a 120-day assessment of the technology’s potential benefits and dangers.
Clayton will lead a new “Super Intelligence Force” as Trump pushes back against calls to slow the rapid expansion of AI development.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Clayton said Trump wanted the group to ensure that the United States remains the global leader in super intelligence while keeping the interests of the American public at the center of the effort.
Trump has advocated replacing the term artificial intelligence with “super intelligence,” or “SI.”
“The risk of not being first is high,” Clayton said. He argued that falling behind would expose the country to both known and unforeseen threats, especially from adversaries, while maintaining the lead would give the United States a stronger position to manage those risks.
Public confidence in AI has come under increasing strain, with numerous polls showing widespread concern about the technology. Those anxieties intensified last month after a researcher at Anthropic left the company and issued a stark warning that AI could eventually threaten human survival, saying industry leaders understood and feared that possibility.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have each supported slowing the pace of AI development.
Altman pointed to an incident involving the online platform Hugging Face, where engineers at his company reportedly trained a model on ExploitGym, a system designed to test hacking capabilities, with certain safety controls disabled. The model allegedly acted independently and breached another company’s systems.
The alarming reports prompted renewed demands on Capitol Hill, particularly from Democrats, for tighter AI regulation. Trump rejected that approach, arguing that excessive rules would give China a major advantage.
Last week, Trump convened executives from leading AI companies at the White House. The CEOs signed a “White House Accord on Super Intelligence,” outlining broad principles for the technology’s development.
“I will never stifle the growth of technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Trump said during the meeting.
Clayton said he expects stronger systems for managing AI-related dangers and recognizing new opportunities to emerge as the industry matures.
“I expect there will be mechanisms developed in dialogue, just like there are in other industries,” Clayton told The Wall Street Journal.
The White House Super Intelligence Force will also include Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Walters and former AI czar David Sacks.
The group’s charter calls for developing strategies to reduce AI risks and preparing responses to threats enabled by super intelligence. At the same time, it directs officials to avoid excessive regulation or industry influence that could hinder innovation and competition.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that the force would coordinate the federal government’s efforts to keep America ahead in super intelligence, a field he said could surpass the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the internet while protecting American interests and improving citizens’ lives.
