President Donald Trump is expected to appoint Jay Clayton, US director of national intelligence, as the new AI czar, CNN and other media reported Friday, citing unidentified sources
Cointelegraph reported Sept. 20 that Trump planned to create an “AI Force” modeled after the Space Force and appoint an artificial intelligence czar. The president posted on Truth Social that his new project would manage the fast-growing AI sector without adding regulations that could slow innovation
Trump’s actions followed several public warnings about the potential dangers of AI
Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 12 that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had written a three-step proposal to pace the speed of AI development that if left unchecked, might “outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”
Subsequently, Anthropic said it had chosen Accenture as an embedded evaluator to help moderate the pace of AI development, moving ahead with the first step outlined in Amodei’s proposal, Cointelegraph reported
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded positively to Amodei’s proposal, although Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did not, arguing that such regulation was not necessary
On Tuesday, Trump gathered AI and technology chiefs at the White House to sign a commitment to “self-police” their companies’ AI models and development, Cointelegraph reported
Clayton led SEC during Trump’s first termCBS News first reported that Clayton was the frontrunner for the AI position. Still, a White House official told CBS that any such announcement would come directly from the president, dismissing the reports as speculation
Clayton led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, served as interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and is expected to also remain in his current role as director of national intelligence, the sources told CNN
When asked about AI during his confirmation hearing, Clayton said the technology is a “game changer” and that it’s “not only an opportunity but a threat,” according to CNN
Cointelegraph reported in March that David Sacks, a venture capitalist who became a special White House official under Trump last year, had wrapped up a 130-day tenure as crypto and AI czar. Under US rules, such special government employees are limited to 130 days of work in a 12-month period
“We’ve now used up that time,” Sacks told Bloomberg in March, noting that he would continue making policy recommendations across a broad range of tech industries as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
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