WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump escalated his campaign to eliminate the term “artificial intelligence” from the federal lexicon, announcing on Tuesday that he plans to formally outlaw the phrase across official government records in favor of “super intelligence.”
Writing on Truth Social, Trump criticized news outlets for continuing to use standard technical vocabulary. He specifically called out The Wall Street Journal, questioning when the newspaper would begin using his preferred substitute, “SI,” and characterized artificial intelligence as “a very bad and inaccurate name.”
“In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term, ‘AI/Artificial Intelligence,’ in all relevant documents, and everything else, due to its inaccuracy,” Trump wrote, predicting that the wider public would adopt the alternative phrasing soon.
Expanding on an Executive Order
Trump previously signed an executive order on Sept. 29 directing the executive branch to substitute “Super Intelligence” and “SI” for “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” to the maximum extent permitted by law, Variety reported. The administration has argued that the new vocabulary better emphasizes the country’s technological ambitions.
“The United States is the world leader in Super Intelligence, and the federal government should use a name that reflects the full promise and opportunities of this technology,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in an emailed statement to Newsweek, reported by Yahoo News. Huston added that the moniker reinforces the administration’s goals of boosting innovation and economic strength.
Historically, computer scientists have drawn distinct lines between the two terms. Artificial intelligence has served for more than 70 years as an umbrella term for machines performing tasks typically associated with human intellect. In contrast, superintelligence generally describes hypothetical future computer systems that surpass human capabilities across virtually all disciplines.
Limits of Presidential Power
Legal authorities pointed out that while the president exercises wide control over executive branch communications, his authority does not extend to private corporations or journalists.
“The president has some, but not unlimited, control over the words the federal government itself uses in its official documents but he has no legal or constitutional authority to police the language choices of the Wall Street Journal or any other private institution or person,” Jamal Greene, a constitutional law professor at Columbia Law School, told Newsweek.
Within the technology sector, compliance with the administration’s desired phrasing remains uneven. Billionaire Elon Musk embraced the rebrand, agreeing to rename the division at SpaceX to “SpaceX Super Intelligence” and “SpaceXSI,” although its web domain continues to use “x.ai,” Variety reported. Gizmodo noted that Musk still used the phrase “AI data centers” in an X post on Sunday. Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella has also spoken the phrase “super intelligence,” though the software giant has not altered product names, while major AI developers such as Anthropic and OpenAI have maintained standard terminology.
A History of Renaming Efforts
The push to rewrite technical vocabulary follows earlier attempts by Trump to change prominent geographical and institutional designations. The president previously called for renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” according to Variety. Trump also recently stated that he wanted to rename the Atlantic Ocean, though Google’s chief executive declined to make that modification within Google Maps.
Earlier, allies of Trump sought to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to include his name, but a federal court invalidated the change as unlawful.
It remains unclear what formal enforcement measures the administration might implement to enforce the terminology ban across executive agencies, or how the directive will interact with existing federal statutes that reference artificial intelligence directly.
