The Trump administration is trying to replace the term artificial intelligence with “super intelligence” across the federal government, turning a branding preference into a policy directive. The Verge reported on October 9 that President Donald Trump ordered agencies to avoid the familiar term where possible, arguing that the word artificial makes the technology sound fake. The campaign is already changing agency names and government communications.
According to The Verge, Trump announced the preferred phrase during a United Nations speech in September and followed it with an executive order the next week. The White House has since pressed the change publicly, while Trump has described people who continue using the established term as opponents. The move gives an industry-wide vocabulary dispute the force of an executive-branch instruction, even though the government does not control how Congress, courts, companies or researchers describe the technology.
Federal agencies have begun implementing the language. The Verge reported that the US Center for AI Standards and Innovation, itself previously renamed from the AI Safety Institute, is now called the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence. Justice Department material has also adopted the phrase, including a release that characterized a music-streaming fraud case as involving super-intelligence-assisted activity.
Several prominent technology executives have publicly supported the switch, The Verge reported. Elon Musk said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, while Jeff Bezos endorsed dropping the word artificial. Nvidia chief Jensen Huang also adopted the phrase. OpenAI chief Sam Altman praised the terminology but said OpenAI would not change its company name. Those reactions show some willingness among industry leaders to follow the administration’s framing, though they do not establish a universal change across the sector.
The rebrand runs into a technical problem: superintelligence already has a different meaning. The word has long referred to a hypothetical system whose capabilities exceed human intelligence, rather than to every product currently categorized as AI. The Verge noted that philosopher Nick Bostrom helped popularize that meaning with his 2014 book “Superintelligence.” Applying the phrase to ordinary generative systems, legacy tools and future advanced systems alike could erase a distinction that researchers and policymakers use when discussing risk.
Existing law creates a separate obstacle. An executive order cannot prevent Congress from writing or speaking about artificial intelligence, and federal statutes already contain the term. The Verge pointed to the Take It Down Act as one example that agencies may need to cite in court. Replacing the words in executive-branch materials does not automatically rewrite those laws, leaving officials to navigate two vocabularies for potentially overlapping technologies.
The change could also complicate new legislation. Some lawmakers already use artificial superintelligence in its established, narrower sense. The Verge cited the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, cosponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders in September, as an example. Under the White House’s new usage, “super intelligence” would describe the broad category, while that bill uses superintelligence to identify a more capable class of systems it seeks to restrict. The difference is substantive, not merely stylistic.
The administration’s campaign arrives as public criticism of AI infrastructure and industry power is growing, according to The Verge. A new name does not resolve disputes over data centers, regulation or the social effects of automated systems. Whether the phrase spreads beyond federal agencies remains uncertain. For now, the effort has created an unusual split: the executive branch is trying to redefine a central technology term while laws, technical literature and much of the public conversation continue to use the old one.
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