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U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration would refer to artificial intelligence as “super intelligence” in U.S. government documents, arguing during his U.N. General Assembly address that the word “artificial” makes the technology sound fake.
“The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control ... artificial intelligence, hereinafter called super intelligence,” Trump told the assembly.
“The use of the word artificial makes intelligence sound fake,” he said. “It is not fake. It’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful.”
Trump said U.S. documents would use the term “super intelligence” instead of artificial intelligence and expressed hope that other countries would adopt it as well.
“In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence — SI,” Trump said. “Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it’s much more accurate.”
Trump reiterated his opposition to international efforts to regulate the technology, saying the U.S. “totally rejects” attempts to create what he described as a “globalist scheme” to control AI.
“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” he said.
Trump also compared warnings from AI safety advocates with warnings over climate change, saying some people who had warned about global warming were now predicting that AI and robots could pose catastrophic threats.
His comments came as concerns over rapidly advancing AI have become a major topic at the U.N. General Assembly.
Ahead of the gathering, leaders of more than 20 mostly European countries called for binding safety measures for advanced AI, warning that development of the technology could move faster than efforts to control it. The U.S. and China did not endorse the proposal.
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The term “superintelligence” is already used to describe a form of artificial intelligence that exceeds human intelligence.
Developing such systems is a goal of several frontier AI companies, while the prospect has also fueled concerns among those warning about potential risks from the technology.
Trump’s comments followed heightened debate over AI safety, including a warning from a former Anthropic researcher that the technology could eventually pose a threat to humanity.
The proposed AI rebranding follows other name changes pursued by the Trump administration, including changing the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” by executive order last year and renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” in August amid a trade dispute with Canada.
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