{"id":8434,"date":"2026-10-09T14:58:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T14:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8434"},"modified":"2026-10-09T14:58:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T14:58:38","slug":"trump-super-intelligence-ai-rebranding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8434","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s attempt to rename AI is looking awfully artificial"},"content":{"rendered":"


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President Donald Trump has a knack for turning words against his enemies. His first successful presidential run was built on monikers like \u201cLittle Marco\u201d and \u201cCrooked Hillary\u201d; he changed \u201cfake news\u201d from a phrase<\/a> describing scammy media outlets to a derogatory term for the press at large. Over the past few weeks, he\u2019s clearly decided he can work the same magic to promote artificial intelligence \u2014 branding a technology he wants to accelerate \u201csuper\u201d, while turning \u201cartificial\u201d into his latest go-to pejorative and declaring resisters<\/a> \u201cTHE ENEMY.\u201d Some of the biggest names in AI are going along with him. But he\u2019s picked a tough linguistic battle, and it may not pan out the way he hopes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A longtime AI booster, Trump has gone into pro-robot overdrive<\/a> since an industry conversation over \u201cpacing\u201d frontier development last month. His current position is that AI safety risks are overblown and US companies need to speed up development, including by building more data centers, which he insists<\/a> contrary to polling data<\/a> will be \u201cvery popular.\u201d On top of discouraging<\/a> industry self-regulation, he\u2019s decided AI needs a rebrand by fiat. Trump declared in a rambling United Nations speech last month that \u201cthe use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake\u201d and promised to rename the technology \u201csuper intelligence.\u201d He then followed through with an executive order<\/a> last week, forbidding the use of \u201cAI\u201d wherever possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Changes have been swift. The US Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), already a rebrand<\/a> of the AI Safety Institute, has been renamed the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (CAISSI). Justice Department press releases have been modified to include the phrase, trumpeting that a man who flooded streaming platforms with AI-generated songs between 2017 and 2024 committed<\/a> \u201cSuper Intelligence-Assisted Music Streaming Fraud.\u201d On Thursday, Trump declared that \u201cThe White House considers anyone that uses the term, \u2018Artificial Intelligence,\u2019 as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, \u2018Super Intelligence,\u2019 THE ENEMY!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The same tech company figures who rushed to donate millions to Trump after his election have quickly signed on. Trump\u2019s \u201cFirst Buddy\u201d Elon Musk has promised to rename<\/a> SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, while Jeff Bezos declared<\/a> he likes it because \u201cartificial is not a very flattering thing.\u201d Jensen Huang, whom Trump called live on stage<\/a> last month to rant that \u201crobots will not be taking over,\u201d has likewise adopted<\/a> the term. Sam Altman praised it<\/a> too, though he said OpenAI won\u2019t be changing its name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As Trump tries to make SI happen, \u201cartificial\u201d is creeping into his vocabulary in the manner of earlier terms like \u201choax\u201d and \u201cfake.\u201d He recently announced that his long-favored epithet \u201cfake news media\u201d would be retired in favor of calling the press \u201cartificial media,\u201d and in an October 5th campaign rally<\/a> (shortly before musing that Iran could \u201ctake out\u201d Los Angeles and San Diego) he declared that concerns about war driving up prices were \u201cjust artificial.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As publicly happy as some AI industry figures have seemed with \u201cSI\u201d, Trump is functionally demanding a major industry rewrite its terminology. \u201cSuperintelligence\u201d (one word) long predates Trump\u2019s affection for \u201csuper\u201d; it was popularized in an eponymous 2014 book by Nick Bostrom. But the term denotes highly advanced artificial intelligence that could surpass human thought, not the category of AI \u2014 an already nebulous term \u2014 as a whole. It\u2019s one of several industry buzzwords<\/a> (alongside artificial general intelligence and \u201cuseful general intelligence\u201d) meant to define what comes after<\/em> the current iteration of the tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump is functionally demanding a major industry rewrite its terminology<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump adopting \u201csuper intelligence\u201d might seem good for companies that had already hitched their wagon to superintelligence, including Meta and Microsoft. And as public opinion turns against AI, some in the industry may desire a rebrand. But forcing immediate adoption of SI also undercuts companies\u2019 ability to promote big, new, flashy AI products as \u201csuperintelligent\u201d, instead applying the term to everything from a future machine god to years-old music-slop generation tools. The field is even taking a downgrade with that additional corny space in the middle, since Trump\u2019s attempts at earnestly good names have never really measured up to his insults.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile, Trump will have to convince the other branches of government to get on board with the term. He can\u2019t bar Congress from using \u201cartificial intelligence,\u201d and it appears in existing laws like Trump\u2019s signature Take It Down Act, which administration agencies will need to cite when arguing in court. As appetite for more AI regulation grows, congressional Republicans will have to decide whether to appease Trump by adopting a name many people find unintuitive, freighted with the baggage of Trump\u2019s fairly unpopular pro-industry, anti-regulatory stance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And to make things even more confusing, pro-regulation figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) were already using the earlier definition of superintelligence in efforts to restrict powerful AI \u2014 Sanders cosponsored a bill<\/a> called the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act in early September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump loves naming things, but his linguistic victories typically work when they\u2019re catchy: either simple nicknames or distinctively funny turns of phrase. (Many people are saying!) \u201cSuper intelligence,\u201d by contrast, simply comes off as a euphemism. A lot of Americans have tangible gripes with the industry, particularly around data centers, and insisting the tech is \u201csuper\u201d does nothing to assuage these concerns. If anything, Trump\u2019s escalating attempts to strong-arm people into a supposedly nicer term for AI makes him \u2014 and the industry itself \u2014 look awfully weak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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