President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to stop using the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in official communications, policy documents and correspondence, replacing them with "Super Intelligence" and "SI." Trump told the U.N. General Assembly last week that he planned to “officially” change the name of AI, saying the existing name makes the technology seem “fake” and that U.S. government documents would begin to use the phrase “super intelligence.” “The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing,” Trump said.
The president polled his Truth Social followers to see if they preferred the term "super intelligence" or "superior intelligence" before landing on his SI term. More than 50,000 people responded, with 65 percent saying they preferred "super intelligence." The executive order states that "the terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the limitless opportunities they create for the American people. Accordingly, the term “Super Intelligence” more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies." The order applies to nonstatutory documents across the executive branch—leaving it uncertain whether laws and agency names that already include "AI" will be impacted.
Experts told Newsweek that it is unlikely the rebranding will be successful, unless it is adopted by industry leaders. "The problem is that the term “super intelligence” has a very specific meaning in the tech world: "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest," "[I]t seems unlikely the re-branding will take off unless tech leaders adopt the term," University of Chicago marketing professor Jean-Pierre Dubé told Newsweek. "While many debate how soon AI will surpass human intelligence, it seems pre-mature to be using the new term “super intelligence.” This brand confusion seems like a major reason it’s unlikely to get adopted anytime soon." Trump signed the order on the same day that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson hosted a summit with several tech industry leaders, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
They discussed the mounting concerns about artificial intelligence, which Bill Gates recently warned could become powerful enough " to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths." Trump on Tuesday also launched America.gov, which the administration described as a new AI-powered gateway aimed to streamline Americans' interactions with the government. The chatbot-style interface allows users to ask questions about government programs, benefits and services. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T.
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