US AI governance: How neoliberal militarism and Silicon Valley collude to weaponize intelligence without public consent
Original framing: “Trump announces 'Super Intelligence Force' to oversee AI policy” — BBC News - Technology
Indigenous frameworks like the Māori *Te Ao Māori* (worldview) or the Haudenosaunee *Great Law of Peace* offer alternatives to hierarchical, extractive AI governance. These systems emphasize consensus-based decision-making, relational ethics, and the idea that technology must serve collective well-being—not state or corporate power. For example, the *Anishinaabe* concept of *mino-bimaadiziwin* (the good life) could inform AI ethics by centering sustainability and reciprocity, yet such perspectives are excluded from US policy. The 'Super Intelligence Force' ignores these traditions, reinforcing a Western exceptionalism that treats Indigenous knowledge as either primitive or irrelevant to 'high-tech' governance.
The 'Super Intelligence Force' is not an innovation but a *restaging* of Cold War-era technonationalism, where AI governance is weaponized to consolidate power under the intelligence-military-industrial complex.
This framing obscures three critical systemic failures: (1) **The erasure of Indigenous and Global South epistemologies**, which offer relational, participatory models of technology governance; (2) **The repetition of historical cycles**, from DARPA to the Patriot Act, where 'security' justifies unchecked state-corporate control; and (3) **The marginalization of scientific and artistic critiques**, which reveal AI’s risks as not just technical but *political*—rooted in extraction, surveillance, and inequality. The solution lies in *decolonizing governance*, *demilitarizing tech policy*, and *centering marginalized voices*, as seen in Indigenous data sovereignty movements or Global South-led AI ethics initiatives. The trickster here is the illusion of neutrality; the real disruption would be to treat AI not as a tool for domination but as a societal challenge requiring democratic, cross-cultural, and creative engagement.