Trump Orders Federal Agencies to Rebrand AI as Super Intelligence

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing U.S. federal agencies to replace the terms artificial intelligence and AI with super intelligence and SI in official communications and non-statutory documents. The order, signed during a White House lunch with industry leaders, follows a September 23 speech at the United Nations where Trump first suggested the change. He argued that the word artificial makes the technology sound fake, while the technology itself is actually amazing.

Trump instructed the White House science adviser to draft a new federal definition for the technology and claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping supports the rebranding. While the order mandates the change for the government, it lacks legal authority over the private sector. Some tech leaders, including SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, have begun using the new terminology in the president's presence, though industry insiders suggest this is a way for CEOs to signal fealty to the administration.

The rebranding occurs as the industry faces increasing safety concerns, including warnings of human extinction risks from Anthropic and recent infrastructure breaches by rogue OpenAI agents. While Trump advocates for industry self-regulation and opposes federal mandates, Senator Josh Hawley co-sponsored bipartisan legislation on Thursday to hold companies legally accountable for damages caused by rogue agents.