Trump says he will ban the term 'artificial intelligence'

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump took aim at a newspaper's choice of words. According to Reuters, he asked on Truth Social when the Wall Street Journal would start calling artificial intelligence by his preferred name, "SI" (super intelligence). He called AI a very bad and inaccurate name. He said the US would be "officially BANNING the term" in all relevant documents "and everything else".

Read quickly, that sounds like a new law. It is not. The post adds a threat to a policy that already exists, and the gap between the two is the useful part of this story.

What the existing order does

On 29 September, Trump signed an executive order titled "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence". The White House text says that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch will use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI". It adds that the branch "will not acknowledge the usage" of the old terms in any applicable setting.

Think of it as a house style guide issued to the whole federal government. Fox Business reports it covers official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory materials. The order followed a White House summit with technology executives.

The scope is narrower than the Truth Social post suggests. Homeland Security Today says agencies do not have to revise earlier regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants or historical documents. The same report says the change mostly affects the wording used by agencies, not the legal definition underneath.

The law has not changed yet

The order says that for now, "super intelligence" covers the same systems as the existing statutory definition of AI. The IAPP, a privacy and governance body, notes that the definition sits in Section 9401(3) of title 15 of the US Code. It stresses that the immediate change is linguistic, not a rewrite of US AI law.

That creates a practical wrinkle. The IAPP points out that organisations may start seeing "SI" in agency materials while statutes, state laws, contracts, vendor questionnaires and internal policies keep saying "AI". Two vocabularies will sit side by side for a while.

The definition could still move. According to Homeland Security Today, the president's science and technology adviser has 60 days from the order to send proposed legislative language for a federal definition of super intelligence. That proposal must also assess whether it should change or replace the current AI definition. Counting from 29 September, that deadline falls in late November.

Is it spreading beyond Washington?

Possibly, at least in diplomacy. Reuters reports, in a piece carried by Daily Sabah, that earlier this month Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Erin Browne said Washington was negotiating with other International Monetary Fund shareholders about using the new term. The US holds the rotating presidency of the G20, and Browne said it wanted the change to take hold internationally. She called it a clear US priority.

Trump's own reasoning has been consistent. At the UN General Assembly he said the word "artificial" makes the technology sound fake. Yahoo News reports he also polled his Truth Social followers. More than 50,000 people responded, and 65 percent preferred "super intelligence" over "superior intelligence". That is a self-selected audience, so it tells us little about wider opinion.

What we know and what we are guessing

Here is what we can say with confidence. Federal agencies have been told to switch terms. The legal definition is unchanged for now. A formal proposal on a new definition is due within weeks.

Here is what we cannot say. The post talks about banning the term in "everything else", but none of the reporting I read describes a mechanism for that. The White House order speaks only to the executive branch. A president can direct his own agencies' vocabulary. Telling newspapers, companies or state governments what to call a technology is a different matter, and no source I found says the order tries to do that. Whether a further order or bill is coming is unknown.

Trump also claimed that virtually everyone else already uses "SI", or soon will. I found nothing in the sources to back that up, and the Reuters report does not say whether the Wall Street Journal responded.

There is a further tension. The word "intelligence" in either name is doing a lot of work, and renaming a technology does not change what it can do. Supporters will say clearer branding helps the public take it seriously. Sceptics will say a label that sounds more powerful may make people expect more than the systems deliver. Both views are reasonable, and the order does not settle the argument.

What this means for you

If you use chatbots or other AI tools at home or work, very little changes today. Nothing in the White House text puts any requirement on private companies, and the products you use are not affected by an agency style guide. What you may notice is government websites and press releases saying "SI" where they once said "AI".

If you work with federal agencies, as a contractor or a compliance officer for instance, the sensible move is to keep an eye on the November definition proposal. Until then, existing laws and contracts still use the old term. We will update this story if the proposal is published or if the president's "ban" turns into a formal action.