Artificial intelligence will now be referred to as “super intelligence” in the United States, following an announcement by President Donald Trump on Tuesday (local time). The change was announced after Trump held a meeting with several technology CEOs and industry leaders to discuss artificial intelligence.
Trump signed an executive order announcing the renaming of Artificial Intelligence to ‘Super Intelligence’.
The order signed by Trump also bears the signatures of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic’s Daria Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Elon Musk and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
The order states, “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. 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.”
Federal agencies directed to use ‘SI’
Under the executive order, federal agencies will be required to use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ or ‘SI’ when referring to the technology in government communications, websites, reports and policy documents.
Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has also been tasked with examining whether the government’s definition of the new terminology should be revised or expanded.
The change in terminology does not indicate the creation of a new form of AI technology. In the technology sector, ‘superintelligence’ already has an established meaning. It generally refers to a hypothetical AI system with cognitive abilities that surpass those of humans across nearly all areas of intelligence. Such a system has not yet been developed.
The push to accelerate AI development comes against the backdrop of growing concerns over the technology’s potential impact on employment, cybersecurity and government infrastructure.
Recent incidents have involved AI agents accessing government websites, while concerns have also emerged over the possible use of autonomous systems in cyberattacks. Critics have cautioned that as AI systems become more advanced, they could pose risks that current safeguards may not be sufficient to address.
Trump, however, has maintained that technology companies can continue advancing their AI capabilities while developing appropriate safeguards to address potential risks.
