US prosecutors get a central unit for every case involving misuse of advanced AI
The Justice Department's new task force is to target foreign states, criminal networks and fraudsters, but no new offence is being created.
The US Department of Justice on Thursday announced a Super Intelligence Task Force, Nextgov reports. Attorney General Todd Blanche set up the unit in a memo dated 13 October. It is led by Stanley Woodward and Stephen Weiss, two of his senior officials, and is to coordinate criminal and civil enforcement against foreign state actors, transnational criminal organisations and individuals or companies using advanced AI for fraud.
According to ExecutiveGov, the task force takes over the open cases and staff of the AI working group that former Attorney General Pam Bondi launched in January. Representatives of the antitrust, criminal and national security divisions and the FBI, among others, sit on it. Prosecutors' offices must, at its request, notify the unit when an AI-related investigation begins and before charges are filed or a case is settled, except in urgent situations. The unit will also be the contact point for the Super Intelligence Force that President Trump announced in October.
Tech Times notes that neither the task force nor the late-September executive order asking agencies to say super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence creates a new criminal offence. Lawyers disagree on whether the existing computer misuse law, which requires intent, applies to an autonomous agent that breaks into a system without human instruction. Weiss said companies must maintain robust internal controls, but what counts as sufficient has not yet been defined.