Trump orders federal agencies to write "Super Intelligence" in place of AI

The order is written as an alias. While agencies implement it, "SI" covers the same technologies as the federal statutory definition of artificial intelligence ^[5]. TechRepublic described this as the government changing the label before it changes the underlying legal definition ^[6].

The drafting gets one thing right. An executive order directs the executive branch within the president's legal authority and does not, by itself, rewrite terms Congress placed in statute ^[13]. Because the new word is tied to the old definition, agency documents written from now on do not use an undefined term. Anyone who has renamed a column in a live database will recognize the order of operations: add the alias, keep the old name readable, migrate the schema later. The order also limits itself to "the maximum extent permitted by law" ^[8].

For teams that report to agencies or sell to them, the change shows up first as vocabulary. New executive branch websites, correspondence, reports and policy documents switch to SI ^[2]. The order's text reaches "in any applicable setting" ^[8]. Neither report says whether a new solicitation, or a report a contractor files with an agency, counts as one.

The scope question sits in the second provision. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology has 60 days to submit proposed legislative language defining "Super Intelligence" and "SI" ^[3]. Counted in calendar days from Sept. 29, the deadline is Nov. 28 ^[15]. The draft is a proposal to Congress. It changes no statute until Congress passes it ^[13]. In my view it is still the document to read closely, because it is where a legal scope for the new word would first be written down ^[3].

Trump has explained the rename in plainer terms. "We're using the word super because the other word is a fake word," he told reporters ^[9]. Researchers use superintelligence for systems that are better than humans at every task, and Tom's Hardware reports that current frontier models are nowhere near that level ^[10]. The same outlet reports that Senator Bernie Sanders has co-proposed a bill banning its development, with penalties on par with illegally developing nuclear weapons ^[14].