O’Reilly: ‘I think you’re going to have to have a new police agency’ for AI

Political commentator Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday called for a new federal law enforcement agency dedicated to artificial intelligence, arguing that the AI industry’s ability to police itself would not go far enough to address the technology’s potential dangers.

“I think you’re going to have a new police agency, federal, that all they do is look at AI,” O’Reilly said in an appearance on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.”

A series of rogue AI incidents, including OpenAI’s recent breach of federal government websites, led to calls from industry experts and leaders about the need to establish safeguards around the rapidly growing technology.

President Trump recently announced plans to establish an “AI Force” and appoint an “AI czar.” The president has, however, rejected calls for regulation, which he argued could slow U.S. development of the tech in the global race for AI dominance.

O’Reilly agreed with Trump that the U.S. faces pressure to continue to rapidly develop AI — which the president is seeking to rebrand as “superintelligence” after signing an executive order Tuesday — as it competes with China.

“We have to be first in this arms race,” he said. “You can’t let China do whatever they want to do.”

Trump also said the government could identify misuse of AI “very easily” through the country’s existing criminal and civil justice system.

The former Fox News host argued Tuesday that a dedicated federal agency would be necessary as increasingly powerful AI systems create new opportunities for cybercrime and other threats.

“The ability to commit crimes, extortion, theft, even trying to get nuclear codes, messing around with the weaponry, it’s all going to get worse,” he continued. “And so, to me, I want to be as preventative as possible.”

O’Reilly added that the federal government should take a more active role in preventing criminal groups from eventually gaining access to incredibly powerful AI systems.

His comments come the same day Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced that some of the country’s largest AI companies had signed a voluntary agreement laying out safeguards for the development of advanced systems.

Trump described the agreements as “almost like a constitution” and “morally binding,” saying there would be a “tremendous self-policing aspect” to the industry’s approach. The president also floated forming a committee to oversee the effort.

The agreement involved several voluntary commitments from the AI titans.

Several tech executives were present at the White House event, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, SpaceX and xAI CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.