DOJ launches Super Intelligence Task Force under Woodward and Weiss

The Justice Department on Thursday, Nov. 5, announced the formation of its Super Intelligence Task Force, or DOJ-SITF, to lead the department’s response to misuse of what the Trump administration calls super intelligence.

The task force is led by Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. and Associate Deputy Attorney General Stephen Weiss, the department said. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the SI Task Force “will facilitate our partnership with SI Force Chair Jay Clayton” as the department works to keep critical technologies from being “manipulated by bad actors at home or abroad.”

Clayton leads the White House Super Intelligence Force, which Trump established to coordinate the government’s engagement with AI companies and other organizations, Nextgov reported. Blanche said DOJ will keep identifying and prosecuting people whose use of SI violates the law, including by targeting American taxpayers, critical U.S. infrastructure or other aspects of national security.

According to the DOJ release, DOJ-SITF will work to ensure America’s leadership in SI “is not compromised by the misuse of SI by foreign state and state-sponsored actors, transnational criminal organizations, and individual or corporate actors engaged in fraud or other unlawful conduct.” Weiss said the department also aims to deter improper use of SI, harden reporting on SI risk and response, and ensure companies exercise “vigorous internal controls so that SI technology behaves as intended.”

Nextgov reported that Blanche’s Oct. 13 memo said the new task force will incorporate the work of DOJ’s AI Litigation Task Force, created in January under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and will coordinate affirmative civil litigation related to AI. The memo also said DOJ-SITF will organize criminal and civil AI enforcement, recommend enforcement priorities and develop guidance on prosecuting unlawful AI-related conduct, Nextgov reported. MLex similarly said the new body is absorbing a previously established unit focused more narrowly on challenging state AI laws. The DOJ public announcement itself does not spell out that absorption.

The department has already told staff to use “Super Intelligence” in place of “artificial intelligence” in official materials, following Trump’s preferred terminology. Blanche’s memo, as quoted by Nextgov, also said DOJ-SITF will “take affirmative measures, as appropriate, to promote American SI dominance.”

DOJ launches Super Intelligence Task Force under Woodward and Weiss

Sources