THE CRUNCH
President Donald Trump has appointed Jay Clayton, his director of national intelligence, to lead a new federal task force on artificial intelligence, announced on Sunday. Trump has named it the "Super Intelligence Force", a label tied to his push to rebrand AI. The name continues a rebranding effort Trump announced at the UN General Assembly in September, when he said the US was officially calling artificial intelligence "super intelligence" because the word artificial makes it sound fake.
The task force will coordinate the federal effort to keep America leading in what Trump calls super intelligence, and it will reach out to consumers, public interest groups, religious organisations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies. Others on the panel include Federal Trade Commission chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon chief technology officer Emil Michael and Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor. The group reports to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
The announcement follows a White House meeting with top AI executives last week, at which Trump said the companies had signed a voluntary accord to effectively self-police the technology's development. TechCrunch characterises the task force as Trump's latest response to the debate over AI safety.