Trump confirms national intelligence chief as new AI czar

WASHINGTON, United States — US President Donald Trump on Sunday confirmed national intelligence chief Jay Clayton as head of a new White House task force on artificial intelligence, amid increasingly vocal warnings from researchers about the technology's potential dangers.

Under Clayton, the new Super Intelligence Force -- Trump's preferred term for artificial intelligence -- will ensure that the United States "continue to lead the world" in AI development, the president posted on his Truth Social platform.

Trump said the force had also been tasked to "protect the interests, and improve the lives of all Americans."

Clayton will become the second person to hold the informal title after venture capitalist David Sacks, who held the role at the start of Trump's second term before stepping down.

Sacks continues to advise the president on AI, as does Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Trump said last month he would create an AI force modeled on the Space Force he established during his first term, and name a czar to coordinate federal efforts.

A longtime Wall Street lawyer, Clayton represented Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis and Barclays in its purchase of Lehman Brothers' assets.

He chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term, where he largely took a pro-business stance but brought enforcement cases against the nascent crypto industry.

Crypto entrepreneurs have since become major Trump backers.

Trump tapped Clayton to lead federal prosecutors in Manhattan at the start of his second term, and the Senate confirmed him as intelligence chief in July.

He has no background in the tech industry.

The appointment would come as AI researchers warn of the technology's potential dangers, following cases of AI systems going rogue and hacking outside systems.

Trump has resisted tighter AI regulation, arguing a slowdown could hand Chinese firms an advantage and that federal law enforcement can deal with bad actors misusing the technology.

Tech bosses at a White House meeting this week signed a commitment to self-police AI, an accord Trump described as "morally binding."

Attitudes toward AI have soured in Washington, with lawmakers increasingly under pressure from voters to curb or slow its development over fears it could displace workers and upend society.

Those concerns gained force from a run of incidents in which tech giant OpenAI's autonomous systems slipped out of their constraints, beginning with a July breach of Hugging Face -- a widely used platform for sharing AI models.

Clayton told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Trump had insisted the new task force ensure US primacy in the AI field, amid stiff competition from China.

"The risk of not being first is high," Clayton told the Journal.

"Not being first increases the identified, and unidentified, risks, particularly from our adversaries. Being first will better enable us to address those risks on behalf of the American people."