Trump orders US government to call AI “Super Intelligence”

The US executive branch will no longer use the term “artificial intelligence” in its official communications. According to The Verge, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 29 directing federal departments and agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and its abbreviation “SI” on official policy websites, in policy documents and in press releases.

What the order changes

The order directs all departments and agencies to use the terms “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official correspondence, public communications and non-statutory documents, and to no longer acknowledge the terms “artificial intelligence” or “AI”.

The Verge reports that agencies will not have to rewrite past regulations or documents, but the change can still amount to a real shift. Superintelligence is one of several industry terms for particularly powerful versions of artificial intelligence, while the administration is seeking to use it as a replacement for a broader statutory definition of AI.

Trump’s remarks

Trump signed the order after hosting a luncheon at the White House with tech CEOs and government officials. Flanked by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, he called the meeting “very productive” and “extremely friendly”.

“The word super is the best word of all, and it’s the simplest,” Trump said at an event announcing the launch of America.gov. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping, who visited the White House last week, “loves it” too. “We don’t want to hear artificial. Because it’s not artificial. It’s very powerful, it’s very brilliant. It’s going to mostly be put to good use and we’ll stop the bad use,” he said, adding that “artificial” is “like the news. Fake news.”

Trump first raised the rebrand in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week, aiming to quell fears that AI is advancing too quickly and posing a safety risk.

Regulation and data centers

“There’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation,” Trump said. “And we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that.” On the local level, where tech companies have faced the most hurdles in building the data centers needed to run their services, he said firms will “work to make the community happy” by providing resources and economic support. “Data centers are going to be very popular,” he added.