Folks, I almost spilled my coffee reading this one. Apparently, President Donald Trump has decided that the term “artificial intelligence” is too negative, so he’s rebranding it as “super intelligence.” Because, you know, that sounds way more friendly and less scary. I mean, who wouldn’t want super intelligence running their lives, right? Trump told fellow world leaders at the United Nations last month that “use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake.” Okay, got it. So now we’re just going to call it super intelligence and hope everyone forgets about the whole “artificial” thing.
It’s not like Trump is trying to convince Americans to love the data centers they hate or anything. Nope, this is just about changing public opinion with a simple name change. Because that’s always how it works, right? I mean, who needs actual policy changes when you can just rebrand something and call it a day? The US government has already started changing official documents and websites to reflect the new term, and cabinet secretaries are using it too. Elon Musk even said he might change the name of his company from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, although that hasn’t happened yet.
Trump has refused to answer questions that use the old term, and he’s told supporters that he’ll start using “artificial” to describe the news media instead. Because, you know, that’s not confusing at all. On Thursday, he said on social media that anyone who uses the term artificial intelligence instead of super intelligence will be viewed as “THE ENEMY!” I’m not sure what’s more amusing, the fact that he’s trying to control the narrative or the fact that he thinks this will actually work.
It’s worth noting that renaming things is actually within Trump’s power, and he’s shown that presidents can change names. Although, it’s not like he’s had a ton of success with this in the past (remember “Lake America” or the “Gulf of America”?). The term superintelligence is actually a separate concept from artificial intelligence, and it refers to a hypothetical future form of AI that not only matches but radically exceeds humans across all cognitive domains. Yeah, that doesn’t sound scary at all.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico’s “Decoded” podcast that there are no plans to change the name of his company to OpenSI, but he did say that people in the industry have been using the term superintelligence for a while. Altman also questioned whether Trump’s rebrand would accomplish its goal of changing people’s opinions of AI. I’m inclined to agree with him, but hey, maybe I’m just a skeptic.
Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has written extensively about superintelligence, and he defined it in a 1997 essay as “an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom, and social skills.” He also said that superintelligence is a separate concept from AI and should be no less intimidating to Americans. Yeah, that’s not exactly reassuring.
Trump, on the other hand, seems to think that superintelligence is just a fancy way of saying “really smart machines.” He wrote on social media that “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” I’m not sure what’s more disturbing, the fact that he thinks he’s the only one who can control AI or the fact that he’s using this as a way to promote himself.
In conclusion, Trump’s attempt to rebrand artificial intelligence as super intelligence is a classic case of trying to put lipstick on a pig. It’s not going to change the fact that people are concerned about AI, and it’s not going to make the technology itself any less scary. But hey, at least it’s been entertaining to watch. And who knows, maybe one day we’ll all be using the term super intelligence and laughing about the good old days when we used to call it artificial intelligence. Until then, I’ll just be over here, sipping my coffee and enjoying the show 🙄.
Armchair patriot. Believes in the free market, cold beer, and that there’s always a guy named George behind every CNN segment.
Former remote-throwing champion turned #1 couch commentator on liberal panic in the media. Born in Texas (or so his mug says), he earned a degree in Fake Newsology & Beer Philosophy from YouTube University.
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