Trump says the term “AI” will be banned in official documents and wants “Super Intelligence” instead

The post

On Oct. 27, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: “When will The Wall Street Journal start calling Artificial Intelligence (AI), a very bad and inaccurate name, SI (Super Intelligence), the name which virtually everyone else is using, or soon will be. In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term, ‘AI/Artificial Intelligence,’ in all relevant documents, and everything else, due to its inaccuracy.”

The post is written in the future tense and doesn’t say when, by what means or for whom a ban would apply. No new presidential order has followed: the most recent entries on the White House’s presidential actions page, dated Oct. 28, concern imports and tariffs. According to Gizmodo, Trump has pushed for more than a month to replace “artificial intelligence” with the two-word phrase “Super Intelligence,” and the post appears to have been prompted by frustration with The Wall Street Journal, which still uses the old term.

What the Sept. 29 order covers

On Sept. 29, Trump signed Executive Order 14434, titled “Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence.” Under the order, the administration’s policy is to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI,” and the government “will not acknowledge the usage of” the old terms in applicable settings, to the extent permitted by law. Federal agencies must use the new terms in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch. Previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants and historical documents don’t have to be changed.

The order defines the new terms as the technologies covered by the definition of artificial intelligence in U.S. law (15 U.S.C. § 9401(3)). It gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 60 days, until late November, to submit proposed legislative language for a federal definition of the new terms. The order is directed only at executive departments and agencies; it doesn’t mention the private sector, the media or the public, and it creates no enforceable rights. Gizmodo writes that the ban described in the post would go beyond the order’s standard and would likely require adding an enforcement mechanism to it.

Reactions and context

According to Mediaite, when asked how a government ban would square with the First Amendment’s free speech protections, the White House press office replied only, “refer to the TRUTH.” Gizmodo notes that Trump cannot legally require journalists to use the phrase.

According to Gizmodo, tech executives have largely gone along with the new name, with some ambiguities and exceptions. Elon Musk said SpaceX’s AI division would be renamed “SpaceXSI” but used the phrase “AI data centers” in a recent post on X. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has not adopted the two-word phrase, though he has written about “superintelligence” as a separate concept.