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Trump Renames AI as 'Super Intelligence' in Executive Order
Confirmed
In Short: President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the use of 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in government documents.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled 'Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence', directing the executive branch to use 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' to the maximum extent permitted by law.
At the launch of America.gov, a new AI-powered website, Trump unveiled the new term, emphasizing that it better captures the promise and potential of these technologies.
The order directs executive departments and agencies to use 'Super Intelligence' in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, and policy documents, while no longer acknowledging the terms 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI'.
Trump said, 'This kind of innovation in government is just a preview of what is possible with super intelligence, or SI, and that's the official name in the United States.
The president also noted that the rebranding of AI as 'Super Intelligence' is a significant step, almost like a constitution for the technology.
The White House Accord on Super Intelligence: Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities outlines four layers of safeguards and audits for companies developing advanced AI models to build public confidence.
Caleb Withers, a research associate for the Technology and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said, 'The term 'Super' does align well with the fact that AI is exceeding human capabilities in a growing range of tasks and by increasing margins, which can have distinct national security implications beyond simply matching human performance.
The executive order also mandates that within 60 days, the assistant to the president for science and technology must submit proposed legislative language addressing a federal definition of 'super intelligence', possible changes to existing statutory references to AI, and any additional executive action that may be appropriate.
Though the rebrand may have been a surprise to many, superintelligence is already an established term in AI literature, popularized in philosopher Nick Bostrom’s 2014 bestseller Superintelligence.
Some experts, however, question whether the term 'superintelligence' is a coherent concept or if it accurately reflects the current state of AI technology.
What this adds
The rebranding of AI to 'Super Intelligence' is a significant shift in terminology that reflects the growing capabilities of AI technologies.
The executive order aims to standardize the use of 'Super Intelligence' across all government documents and communications, potentially influencing how the term is used in the broader public discourse.
Background
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday officially renaming artificial intelligence as 'Super Intelligence' in all government documents.
A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the most gifted human minds. Philosopher Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest".
What's confirmed
- Why is Trump replacing AI with ‘Super Intelligence’?
- The order, titled "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence," directs executive departments and agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports and policy documents, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
- The order also directs agencies to "no longer acknowledge" the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI," according to the White House.
- "The term 'Super Intelligence' more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies," Trump wrote in the order.
What's still developing
- Trump, who had teased the new term at the United Nations General Assembly last week, was speaking at the launch of America.gov, a new website being touted as an AI-powered one-stop-shop to access federal services and information.
- “From this point forward, all of United States’ documents, and hopefully the world’s, will be changed to use the much more accurate term, ‘super,’ as opposed to ‘artificial’,” he said.
- It was popularized in philosopher Nick Bostrom’s 2014 bestseller Superintelligence, which defines the term as “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest.” Artificial superintelligence, or ASI, thus refers to future AI systems that could be much smarter than humans, and contrasts with the weaker forms of AI that exist today.
- In the influential 2025 paper “AI as Normal Technology,” authors Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan write, “We do not think there is a useful sense of the term ‘intelligence’ in which AI is more intelligent than people acting with the help of AI.” But others say the possible renaming contributes to an ongoing conversation about AI’s growing abilities.