Trump orders federal agencies to call AI "Super Intelligence" in their own documents

The first people to act on this order are the staff who maintain agency web pages and draft agency letters. For them it is a style rule with an unusual verb in it. Agencies "will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting," the order says ^[2].

A vendor should read the word "acknowledge" twice. An agency changing its own documents has a find-and-replace job. Acknowledging applies to other people's words, such as a proposal or a product sheet with "AI" in its title. PCMag's account describes an order aimed at what agencies themselves publish and send ^[1][2]. It does not say how staff should treat outside documents that use the old term.

The White House fact sheet makes the pitch. It says the "Super" in the name "conveys the true capabilities of the technologies being developed today," and that the old term implied the technology was merely "imitating or automating human intelligence" ^[8]. It also says the new name "will ensure departments and agencies remain focused on expanding the capabilities and applications of these technologies" ^[9]. Trump gave his own reason at the White House event. "Because it's not artificial, we all agree on that, and we're going to rename Super Intelligence," he said ^[10].

What agency staff will actually do is use a different word in what they publish ^[1][2]. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, objected ^[12]. "But changing what we call artificial intelligence does nothing to address the very real risks that come with increasingly powerful AI systems," Warner said in a statement ^[11].

A company selling to agencies can sort each document with two questions: who wrote it, and was it written before or after the order. An agency document written after the order should say Super Intelligence or SI ^[1]. An agency regulation, contract or grant from before it keeps its wording under the exemption ^[4]. Your own documents, from either period, fall outside the order as PCMag describes it, because the order binds the executive branch ^[3]. The "acknowledge" clause is the one open question.

I'd keep "AI" in product pages and proposals, and use "Super Intelligence" when quoting or replying to an agency document that uses it. The cost is a proposal that calls one product by two names, and a reviewer who may prefer the new one. The benefit is copy that matches the words Congress still uses, Warner's statement included ^[3][11].