Trump Pushes to Rebrand Artificial Intelligence as ‘Super Intelligence’ by Executive Order

US President Donald Trump has launched an aggressive campaign to officially rebrand artificial intelligence, issuing an executive order to replace the term "AI" across federal agencies with the phrase "Super Intelligence" (SI).

The linguistic push follows Trump's speech at the United Nations, where he argued that "the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake." Framing AI safety concerns as overblown, Trump has advocated for accelerating development, dismissing industry discussions around pacing frontier models, and urging the rapid construction of data centers.

Federal Rebranding Takes Effect

Following the executive order forbidding the use of "AI" wherever possible, administrative branches have rapidly adapted their public communications and organization names:

• The US Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI)—itself a rebranding of the AI Safety Institute—has been renamed the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (CAISSI).
• The Department of Justice modified press releases, recasting a case involving automated track uploads from 2017 to 2024 as "Super Intelligence-Assisted Music Streaming Fraud."
• Trump escalated his rhetoric on Thursday, warning: "The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, ‘Super Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!"

Simultaneously, Trump has begun using "artificial" as a broad pejorative, retiring his long-used phrase "fake news media" in favor of "artificial media," and describing inflation worries at a campaign rally as "just artificial."

Tech Leaders Fall in Line

Prominent figures across Silicon Valley have publicly aligned with the White House's terminology shift:

• Elon Musk announced plans to rename SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI.
• Jeff Bezos voiced support for the rebranding, stating that "artificial is not a very flattering thing."
• Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia—whom Trump recently called live on stage during a rant arguing that robots will not take over—has adopted the term.
• Sam Altman praised the phrasing, though he confirmed OpenAI will retain its corporate name.

Industry Confusion and Legal Hurdles

The administration's decree creates notable confusion within technical and legal frameworks. In computer science, the term "superintelligence"—popularized in Nick Bostrom’s 2014 book—has historically described a hypothetical stage where machine intellect vastly exceeds human cognitive capabilities across virtually all domains, rather than routine automation or current generation models. By using "super intelligence" as a catch-all label, older software tools and everyday algorithmic systems are now lumped under the same moniker.

Furthermore, the executive order faces clear limitations. The White House cannot compel Congress to alter its terminology. Existing legislation, including Trump’s signature Take It Down Act, already codifies the phrase "artificial intelligence" into law, which government lawyers must continue citing in legal filings. Meanwhile, lawmakers pushing for stricter oversight—such as Senator Bernie Sanders, who cosponsored the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act—already utilize the traditional definition of superintelligence to target high-risk frontier systems, setting the stage for conflicting legal interpretations.