Trump launches "Super Intelligence Force" to steer AI without new laws

US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday, 4 October 2026, that he has tapped Jay Clayton — the Director of National Intelligence — to lead a new federal body called the "Super Intelligence Force". In a Truth Social post, Trump said the task force will coordinate the government's effort "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."

Alongside Clayton, the force will be co-led by Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); Emil Michael, the Pentagon's chief technology official; and Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management. The task force will reach out to consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies — and will report directly to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

The announcement comes five days after Trump presided over a big-tech AI pledge signed on 29 September. At that White House meeting, chief executives from the industry's giants — including Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, plus representatives of Nvidia, SpaceX, OpenAI and Google — signed a document titled the "Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities". Trump said he considers the pledge morally binding, but analysts note it was never legally enforceable: no penalties, no mandatory audits, no incident-reporting obligations.

The name itself is part of a larger rebrand. On 29 September, Trump signed an executive order titled "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence", instructing the US government to replace the term "Artificial Intelligence" with "Super Intelligence" (SI). In other words, the government will no longer write "AI" in official documents — it will write "super intelligence". Experts say the name changes nothing about the technology itself; what changes is how the government presents it and how contractors label their bids.

All of this unfolds against deep public unease. A Quinnipiac poll released last week found that 73% of Americans worry AI could threaten human survival, and 81% say safety matters more than innovation. The government has nonetheless chosen the "self-governance" route: instead of strict new laws, a government task force will coordinate, companies will set their own rules — and users will trust.

What does this mean for you?

Small businesses and entrepreneurs: The tools you use every day — ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI in WhatsApp — are built by the very companies that signed the US pledge. Because the agreement is not legally binding, the safety of those tools rests with the companies themselves, not the law. Read your tool's terms of use: know where your data goes, and don't feed it sensitive business information without thinking.

Students and teachers: The US–China race is speeding AI up — tools will grow more powerful every year. But remember: "voluntary" is not "mandatory". AI can invent answers and make serious mistakes, and no new US law forces builders to prove safety before shipping a product. Use AI as an assistant, never as the final authority.

Parents: Children are using chatbots more every day, while the US has decided companies will set their own limits. Talk to your children about not trusting every answer, and about understanding that the companies building these tools have business interests — not your family's wellbeing — at heart.

Policymakers and industry partners: The message to Africa is clear: the big powers are writing their own rules, in their own interest. African countries need their own AI policy thinking — protecting citizens and supporting home-grown innovation — instead of waiting for rules from abroad.