Words: Alexander Vance.
President Donald Trump.
For most of the past decade, two letters have defined one of the most consequential technological shifts in modern history. AI has moved from research laboratories into boardrooms, factories, financial markets, hospitals, government agencies, and homes. It has become a strategic priority for corporations and nations, reshaping investment, productivity, labor markets, and the global contest for technological leadership.
Now Donald Trump wants to change the language.
Trump argued that artificial intelligence should be called “Super Intelligence”, or SI, saying the word “artificial” makes the technology sound fake when its capabilities are very real. His administration began promoting the terminology in official settings, turning what might have appeared to be a branding exercise into a wider statement about the strategic importance of advanced intelligence.
The distinction matters because “superintelligence” already has an established meaning in technology. It generally refers not to today’s chatbots or enterprise software, but to a future form of machine intelligence capable of outperforming humans across a broad range of intellectual tasks.
By applying the term more widely, Trump has brought a concept once associated with futurists and AI researchers into mainstream political language.
Sam Altman, Chief executive, OpenAI.
Elon Musk, Founder and CEO, SpaceX and CEO, Tesla.
Dario Amodei, Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher and entrepreneur.
For most of the past decade, two letters have defined one of the most consequential technological shifts in modern history. AI has moved from research laboratories into boardrooms, factories, financial markets, hospitals, government agencies, and homes. It has become a strategic priority for corporations and nations, reshaping investment, productivity, labor markets, and the global contest for technological leadership.
Now Donald Trump wants to change the language.
Trump argued that artificial intelligence should be called “Super Intelligence”, or SI, saying the word “artificial” makes the technology sound fake when its capabilities are very real. His administration began promoting the terminology in official settings, turning what might have appeared to be a branding exercise into a wider statement about the strategic importance of advanced intelligence.
The distinction matters because “superintelligence” already has an established meaning in technology. It generally refers not to today’s chatbots or enterprise software, but to a future form of machine intelligence capable of outperforming humans across a broad range of intellectual tasks.
By applying the term more widely, Trump has brought a concept once associated with futurists and AI researchers into mainstream political language.
NERSC data-center racks.
A robot working alongside a person, reflecting AI’s shift towards greater autonomy.
