On Trump's Orders, US Documents Swap 'AI' for 'SI'
All blog articles
The word “artificial” just lost its federal job. At the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Donald Trump announced that all US government documents will now call artificial intelligence “super intelligence”. SI, for short.
Why Trump Prefers “Super Intelligence” to “Artificial”
His reasoning fits in one line: “artificial” makes the technology sound fake, when he finds it “actually amazing”. The new label “sounds much better” and is, in his words, “much more accurate”.
Welcome to the new world of super intelligence. It sounds much better.
No committee of linguists picked the name. Days earlier, Trump polled his Truth Social followers, and “super intelligence” beat “superior intelligence” by a two-to-one margin. The move follows other rebrands, from the Gulf of Mexico turned “Gulf of America” to Lake Ontario turned “Lake America”.
The State Department Already Writes SI
This went beyond a podium line, fast. An internal email obtained by the Associated Press orders diplomats in the international organizations bureau to replace every “Artificial Intelligence” mention with “Super Intelligence”.
By Wednesday, US representatives used the SI acronym at a UN Security Council meeting about the risks of that very technology. Even Trump's planned “AI Force” may need a second baptism as the “SI Force”.
Super Intelligence Already Meant Something Else
Here is the catch: the term was already taken. Superintelligence has long described an AI that exceeds human capability, both the end goal of frontier labs and the core fear of their critics. Stamp that word on every chatbot and you muddy debates that were already messy, right when OpenAI claims AGI with GPT-6 Astra.
Context makes it thornier. Trump used the same speech to reject international AI regulation and compared safety advocates to climate alarmists. Abroad, reactions lean skeptical, with Canada's AI minister “not enthusiastic” about rebrands of any kind.
Seventy Years of “AI” Won't Vanish Overnight
The phrase dates back to 1956 and John McCarthy, who coined it to define a new research field. Seven decades of papers, laws and product names still say AI. Even Trump hedged: “Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't”.
Why does Trump want to rename AI “super intelligence”?
Trump argues the word “artificial” makes the technology sound fake, while he considers it remarkable. He views “super intelligence” as a more accurate and more flattering label for US documents.
Will companies have to switch from AI to SI?
No, the order only covers US government documents and diplomatic communications, not the private sector. OpenAI, Google and Anthropic can stick with the AI label, and industry adoption of the new term remains uncertain.