Trump orders federal agencies to say Super Intelligence instead of AI

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing the US executive branch to refer only to Super Intelligence in official policy websites, policy documents, and press releases, The Verge reports.

An executive order is a presidential directive to federal agencies. Past regulations and older documents stay as written.

At Tuesday's America.gov launch event, Trump called super the best word of all and the simplest, said Chinese President Xi Jinping loves it too, and compared artificial to fake news. He first floated the rebrand in a UN General Assembly speech last week. The Verge notes he signed the order after a White House luncheon with tech CEOs.

Gizmodo prints the order's line that the executive branch will not acknowledge the usage of Artificial Intelligence and AI in any applicable setting. In brief public remarks after the lunch, Trump said the name had been officially changed to SI, pronounced sigh, and claimed the biggest people in the field had changed it with him, with a nod to Nvidia's Jensen Huang.

The order defines Super Intelligence as the technologies and systems already covered by artificial intelligence in 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3). That statute describes machine-based systems that make predictions, recommendations, or decisions for human-defined objectives. In this order, Super Intelligence is the White House's replacement label for that ordinary legal definition. Industry writing usually reserves superintelligence for systems meant to sit above human capability.

Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, has 60 days to propose legislation establishing a legal definition of Super Intelligence that could modify, expand upon, or otherwise supersede older AI terms.

Meta Public Affairs Manager Francis Brennan told Gizmodo that Mark has been using superintelligence publicly in a letter, product descriptions, and the name Meta Superintelligence Labs. Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Nvidia, and Google did not reply to Gizmodo in time for publication.

Labs can keep saying AI in product copy while the government stops saying it in press releases. One vocabulary for official paper, another for the companies that still sell the stuff.

Gizmodo notes Zuckerberg's letter still says AI dozens of times.

Sources

• Trump orders US government to call AI 'Super Intelligence' – The Verge
• Trump Clearly Expects AI Leaders to Go Along With His Super Intelligence Rebrand. Will They? – Gizmodo