Trump's "Super Intelligence" order: who's using the new term and who isn't

A month after President Trump ordered federal agencies to say "Super Intelligence" instead of AI, the new term hasn't taken hold, MIT Technology Review reported on November 2. Executive Order 14434, signed on September 29, tells the executive branch to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI".

The stakes go beyond vocabulary. Reporter James O'Donnell argues the rebrand could turn a choice of words into a political loyalty test, much like the "Gulf of America" change, after which the White House barred the Associated Press from some events.

What the order does

Reading the order text, agencies must use the new terms in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports and other non-statutory documents. The order says today's systems "amplify human ingenuity" and so deserve a new name.

It doesn't force agencies to rewrite older regulations, contracts or grants. For now, "Super Intelligence" means whatever the existing federal definition of artificial intelligence in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3) covers.

The order also sets a deadline. Within 60 days, the president's science and technology adviser must send proposed legislative language for a federal definition, which puts it in late November.

Government is switching unevenly

MIT Technology Review points to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request for "SI-powered" surveillance of detention facilities. The National Institutes of Health now warns visitors that its site may show both terms. ClearanceJobs reported that NIST said it would adopt the term and that the Navy told its commands to switch.

There have been slips. The Pentagon announced Project Meridian a day after the order using the old wording, and an FTC press release last week wrote "superintelligence" as one word. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said "AI" in an October 3 interview, according to the same report.

"AI" will probably survive in official names such as the Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, since the order doesn't touch previously issued documents.

Tech executives and the press are mixed

On the day of the order, Trump also released a nonbinding White House Accord on Super Intelligence. MIT Technology Review says it was signed by Sundar Pichai, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. TechRepublic noted that Trump called the commitments "morally binding" even though the accord is voluntary.

The signers haven't all adopted the language. Citing a CNBC analysis of third-quarter earnings calls, MIT Technology Review says only Zuckerberg and Musk used the term consistently, and Meta had said "superintelligence" since last year anyway. Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet executives said "AI", though Microsoft's shareholder letter mentioned a "Super Intelligence era". Huang uses both.

Sources differ on how enthusiastic the industry is. ClearanceJobs says Musk, Huang and Jeff Bezos have embraced the term, while MIT Technology Review stresses that Huang still says AI too. I'd read that as partial adoption, not a clean sweep.

Trump has also gone after the press. On October 27 he criticised the Wall Street Journal on Truth Social for not using the term, per MIT Technology Review. ClearanceJobs quotes the same day's post: "In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term" AI. Neither report describes the rule he appears to have in mind.

Pushback and loose ends

California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a competing order telling state agencies to keep saying "artificial intelligence", ClearanceJobs reports. The same article says no other country has changed its official vocabulary.

University of Maryland computer scientist Jim Purtilo told ClearanceJobs that "super intelligence" is "hype", a term without a substantive definition. Law firm Wiley Rein warned that many contracts, grant programs and procurement rules rely on the current statutory definition, so a new one could cause implementation problems.

There's also a cost question. MIT Technology Review notes that federal employees are already writing transition guides, including a Navy message and a Marine Corps one.

What happens next

The definition proposal is due in late November, and it's the first real test of whether "Super Intelligence" means anything different from "AI". MIT Technology Review published its piece the day before the midterms; a Pew survey it cites found Americans rank AI above climate policy as an election issue.

Honestly, I think the order's practical effect is small so far: a find-and-replace on government websites. The bigger risk is the one O'Donnell raises, that two people arguing about chatbots stop talking once they notice which word the other uses. And I'd guess a ban on "AI" in documents would be much harder to enforce than a rename, given how many programs have the word baked into their legal names.