Trump tells federal agencies to use the term 'Super Intelligence ' instead of artificial intelligence

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.”

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