For Trump, everything about AI is ‘Super’: it’s not so much about regulating it as it is about rebranding it

For U.S. President Donald Trump, everything is "super". After renaming artificial intelligence ‘super intelligence’ following a poll on his social media platform Truth – because, in his view, it is not artificial at all – and publishing the seating plan for his meeting with global technology leaders on 29 September, which he dubbed the ‘Super Intelligence Luncheon’, on Sunday he announced the creation of a new federal task force dedicated to the sector: the Super Intelligence Force. Trump had already hinted at this a month ago, comparing it to the Space Force, a branch of the armed forces created during his first term. He has appointed Jay Clayton, Director of National Intelligence, to head this unit; Clayton effectively becomes the Administration’s head of AI and has not been spared the nickname, having been immediately dubbed the ‘AI tsar’.

The remit of this task force – which also includes Vice-President J. D. Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – will be to draft, within 120 days, a report on the risks and opportunities of ‘superintelligence’ and to define the federal government’s responsibilities, in order to ‘ensure that America remains a world leader’ in the field of artificial intelligence, Trump said.

Also on the ‘super-advert’ board, Truth, the president said that the super-task force would ‘protect the interests’ and ‘improve the lives’ of Americans. Bessent and Wiles, following the controversy over cyber-attacks and the mass resignations at AI companies, convinced the president of the need for greater government intervention and the creation of a federal task force. But Trump, rather than regulation, seems to remain more interested in rebranding the sector: the only bulwark this technology needs, he said, is a "strong and intelligent" president.