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Trump tells federal agencies to use the term 'Super Intelligence ' instead of artificial intelligence — President insists that AI is only suffering from a branding problem Will changing what we call the technology address the underlying issues? President Donald Trump signed a directive telling federal agencies to start calling AI “Super Intelligence” after hosting a lunch at the White House with industry leaders discussing the technology and the risks that it carried. According to the executive order, the term artificial intelligence was born in the United States 70 years ago, and the capabilities achieved by AI today are much more advanced than what the original innovators envisioned. Because of this, he saw fit to have the federal government call that technology by the new term that he coined instead of referring to it as “artificial intelligence.” “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 said. “It is therefore the policy of my Administration that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch shall use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in place of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ and will not acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ in any applicable setting.” Trump believes that AI is only suffering from a branding issue, just as a recent poll showed that 79% of Americans think that AI safety is more important than having frontier models, while 73% said they will push back against the construction of an AI data center in the neighborhood. Opposition against the AI infrastructure build-out has been increasing throughout 2026, with protests primarily driven by concerns about local utility hikes and noise pollution. Aside from that, there have also been numerous security incidents involving AI going rogue, to the point that Anthropic listed “existential risk to humanity” as one of its risk factors in its IPO prospectus. But even though Trump changes what he and the rest of the federal government call AI, it still does not address all those concerns. Using the term “Super Intelligence” could also bring some confusion, as it’s the term that scientists use for a level of AI that has achieved cognitive superiority to humans and are better at them in every conceivable task. While the latest frontier models are extremely good at doing particular actions, they still are nowhere near the level of superintelligence described by experts. While the White House wants to win the AI race with China and has been pushing hard for the development of this technology, some industry leaders and politicians are concerned that an artificial superintelligence could get out of control and end humanity. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), alongside Senator Greg Cezar (D-Texas), have even proposed a bill banning its development, with the included penalty at par with the illegal development of nuclear weapons. Still, it seems that some of the executives of the biggest AI tech companies are following the President’s lead, with Elon Musk adopting the term while in Trump’s presence. As for the President, he told reporters that the change has officially been made “by the biggest, the smartest, the greatest people anywhere in the world at this,” likely referring to the AI executives who attended the lunch at the White House. “We’re using the word super because the other word is a fake word.” Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. - aldaia Good luck renaming all this international conferences and journals :ROFLMAO:Reply • AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence • IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) • ECAI (European Conference on Artificial Intelligence) • IAAI (Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence) • CAAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence • MICAI (Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence) • AUTC_AI (International Conference on Advanced Technology and Artificial Intelligence) • ICAART (International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence) • SETN (Hellenic Conference on Artificial Intelligence) • SBIA (Brazilian Symposium on Artificial Intelligence) • AI Congress Barcelona • AI Conference (San Francisco) • AI Summit London • AI World Congress • AI Con USA • Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks (Artificial Intelligence Meet) • ETAI (Emerging Topics in Artificial Intelligence) • ICAI (International Conference on Artificial Intelligence) • Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ / Elsevier) • JAIR (Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research) • Applied Artificial Intelligence • Artificial Intelligence Review • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine • Artificial Intelligence and Law • Artificial Intelligence in Engineering • Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence • Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence • Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing Research • Journal of Artificial Intelligence Systems • Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence (JETAI) • International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence • International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence - bit_user Reminds me of how ARM decided to name their new server CPU "AGI", in spite of the fact that there's nothing particularly AI-oriented about it, much less AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). It's sort of like thinking you can win just by declaring victory.Reply Also, not all AI applications use leading-edge or sufficiently general models that the term "super intelligence" even makes any sense, when applied to them. - rgd1101 remember the time when every company put blockchain somewhere too boost the stock price.Reply - Roland Of Gilead Another punt from the leader of the current US administration, to call something what he wants to call it! All with the hope of getting some kind of kudos from, well, I don't actually know from whom. It makes him feel important.Reply Meanwhile, the rest of the world will call it what it's always been called - AI, until it actually hits the SI nomenclature technically. This is another Lake Ontario situation. - SkyBill40 How about NO? NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS NOR SHOULD THEY. The only ones who might care and fold on bended knee for this is his army of pedantic sycophants.Reply - COLGeek I'll post what some are thinking.Reply This is another example of trying to put lipstick on a pig. Changing the name is a purely meaningless gesture and distraction from the issues (pros/cons) of the topic, in general. - SkyBill40 ReplyCOLGeek said:I'll post what some are thinking. This is another example of trying to put lipstick on a pig. Changing the name is a purely meaningless gesture and distraction from the issues (pros/cons) of the topic, in general. Obfuscation and deflection. Trademarks and/or hallmarks coming from the camp of the "Art of the Deal". - bit_user Reply But, you have to care, if you're either in the US Federal Government or deal with them. Because, they now have to start using this term, whether they like it or not.SkyBill40 said:How about NO? NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS NOR SHOULD THEY. - Thunder64 "President insists that AI is only suffering from a branding problem".Reply Show me where he said that. I bet you can't and just wanted to take a jab at the prez. This is completely stupid just like the "Gulf of America" and "Lake Ontario" but try to be objective.
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