WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has created a new task force to coordinate criminal and civil cases against the misuse of advanced artificial intelligence, the department announced on Thursday, as the Trump administration rebrands the technology as "super intelligence."
The Super Intelligence Task Force, known as DOJ-SITF, will target foreign states and state-sponsored actors, transnational criminal organizations and individual or corporate offenders who use the technology to commit fraud or other unlawful conduct, according to the department's announcement. It will be led by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Associate Deputy Attorney General Stephen Weiss.
The task force was established under a memorandum signed by the attorney general on Oct. 13. It absorbs the department's earlier Artificial Intelligence Litigation Unit, which was set up in January to challenge state AI laws the administration viewed as conflicting with federal policy.
"Super intelligence" is the term the executive branch now uses in place of "artificial intelligence," under a Sept. 29 executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The order also created a White House Super Intelligence Force, chaired by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, which was given 120 days to report on the technology's risks and rewards. The Justice Department task force will serve as the department's main point of contact with that group.
No charges were announced with the launch, and the task force creates no new criminal offense. Attorney General Todd Blanche has said he will not investigate or prosecute AI companies when no statute is being violated — a position that sets up an early test over whether existing computer-crime law, written around human intent, reaches an autonomous AI agent acting without a person directing it.
The executive order sets a Nov. 28 deadline for the White House science adviser to submit proposed legislative language for a federal definition of super intelligence, including whether it should modify or replace the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence.
