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President Donald Trump announced on September 19 that he is creating an “AI Force” and plans to appoint an artificial intelligence “czar” to oversee the initiative, placing a new government structure around a technology his administration has described as critical to U.S. economic and strategic competitiveness.
Trump said the new force would be modeled on the Space Force, which he established during his first term, but he did not provide details on its membership, legal authority or how it would be organized.
“For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. He said he would soon announce an AI “Czar,” adding, “Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!”
Trump presented the initiative primarily as a way to support and monitor the rapidly expanding AI industry rather than impose new restrictions.
“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” he wrote, adding that the administration would “watch over it, as it grows.”
He said harmful uses of AI could instead be addressed through existing criminal and civil law. He also dismissed broader warnings about the technology and argued that additional regulation could undermine U.S. development.
The president described AI as potentially comparable to “the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet” and said it could eventually account for “possibly as much as 25% of our Country’s GDP.” Furthermore, he claimed that the U.S. was leading China and intended to maintain that position.
The announcement comes as the Pentagon expands its use of AI for intelligence analysis, planning and military decision-making, while a recent investigation into a deadly U.S. strike in Iran has highlighted the consequences of relying too heavily on such systems.
According to Bloomberg, a Pentagon investigation found that faulty intelligence, outdated imagery and overreliance on AI contributed to the February 28 U.S. strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran. Two Tomahawk missiles struck the school, killing more than 150 people, including at least 123 children.
Investigators found that some U.S. Central Command personnel relied too heavily on Palantir’s Maven Smart System, an AI-enabled military platform, expecting it to identify stale or inconsistent intelligence.
The investigation also found that information showing changes to the site had not been properly incorporated into the targeting process.
The reported failures extended beyond the AI system itself. Bloomberg’s reporting said an intensive air campaign that struck more than 1,000 targets during the first 24 hours left less time for target review, while reductions in civilian-protection personnel and gaps in information about the site further complicated the process.
Palantir has disputed responsibility for the underlying intelligence and said there was no evidence its software was at fault.
The company said it subsequently developed tools intended to identify information that could disqualify a target and flag inconsistencies that human reviewers might miss.
The episode illustrates a central challenge facing the Trump administration as it seeks to accelerate AI adoption. AI can process large volumes of information and speed up decisions, but errors in the underlying data can also be processed and propagated more quickly when human review is compressed or treated as secondary.
The Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, Cameron Stanley, said earlier this month that the U.S. was helping allied militaries avoid mistakes Washington had made as they expanded their use of AI. He noted that the U.S. had greater resources, experience and scale than its allies and was working with partners so they would not repeat those mistakes.
For Trump, the AI Force is intended to reinforce U.S. leadership in a technology he sees as an economic and strategic priority. The Minab investigation, meanwhile, has provided a recent example of why oversight, reliable data and human judgment remain significant as AI becomes more deeply integrated into government and military operations.
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