Trump says he will form new ‘AI Force’ but continues to call AI fears a ‘hoax’

As concerns from Silicon Valley and beyond grow about the rapid pace of AI development, President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would move to create a new “AI Force” and promised to appoint a new AI czar as he continued to defend the technology.

Referring to the fears around AI alignment as a “hoax,” Trump asserted in a post on social media that “we will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” adding, “rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”

However, Trump said in order to look out for the “bad” aspects of AI, the U.S. would form an “AI Force,” likening it to the formation of Space Force during his first term, and said he would appoint an AI czar in the “near future.”

It is unclear what the “AI Force” would be tasked with doing.

Space Force — which falls under the purview of the Department of Defense — was created by an act of Congress as a sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces in 2020. Another armed forces branch would require further action from Congress.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump appeared to reject the idea that new regulations were needed to protect the wider world from the threat of misaligned AI systems, asserting that the U.S. could already do so within the existing legal framework.

“We will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System,” Trump wrote in the post announcing the new “AI Force.”

Trump’s announcement comes amid warnings from top tech leaders about the potential dangers of AI.

Last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a blog post calling to slow the pace of AI development. Shortly afterward, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, said his company would also welcome a slower development pace to ensure that the technology’s capabilities don’t “get ahead of alignment and monitoring.”

Some lawmakers have also called for more guardrails around AI development.

At the time Trump responded that the warnings were a “HOAX” and that there was a “SICK conspiracy” going on around AI.

The president’s latest comments announcing the new “AI Force” echoed that of David Sacks, co-chair of Trump’s science and technology council, who indicated at a Politico conference on Wednesday that more regulations were not necessarily needed.

“I think the starting point for talking about AI regulation is to realize the regulations that we already have,” said Sacks, who previously served as the White House’s former AI and crypto czar until stepping down in March.

“We have a highly regulated administrative state, and we already have a lot of laws and regulations that pertain to AI. And we have a lot of administrative agencies that promulgate regulations related to AI,” Sacks said.