A mandate with an uneven rollout
The administration’s stated case is that modern AI systems “amplify human ingenuity” rather than merely “imitate” intelligence. That, it argues, warrants a different name. Trump had also offered “extreme intelligence” and “supreme intelligence” in the poll.
The federal rollout is already inconsistent:
The old term is unlikely to disappear quickly. The order does not cover previously adopted regulations or published documents, and years of agencies, programs and initiatives already use “AI.” Even federal officials need time to adjust: a national-laboratory researcher interviewed by the author repeatedly said “AI” before apologizing for the slip. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used the old term in an interview on October 3.
But the administration’s other renamings suggest the goal may reach beyond government language. Trump changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, renamed a lake, and renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. The Kennedy Center renaming remains contested. In the case of the Associated Press, the administration barred its journalists from some White House events after the outlet declined to use “Gulf of America.”
Who is adopting the term?
On October 27, Trump criticized The Wall Street Journal on Truth Social for refusing to use “superintelligence,” which he said “almost everyone else uses or will soon use.” He suggested the rule could go beyond the order and ban “artificial intelligence” from government documents altogether. The Journal is not alone: Newsmax, whose founder has called the company supportive of Trump and his policies, also avoids the preferred term.
Technology executives have not settled on it either. On the day Trump signed the renaming order, he also issued a nonbinding AI safety statement that the White House called the “Superintelligence Agreement.” It was signed by six industry figures:
A CNBC analysis of third-quarter earnings calls found that only Zuckerberg and Musk consistently used the new term. Meta had already used “superintelligence” since last year, which makes Zuckerberg a less persuasive example of adoption. Musk’s companies appear to use it more than others. He even promised to rename SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI, while continuing to alternate between “SI” and “AI” in his X posts.
Executives at Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet used “AI” on their calls. Microsoft did refer to an “age of superintelligence” in a recent shareholder letter. Huang used the new term too, but continued to say “AI.”
The political cost of a word
The immediate objection is the time and taxpayer money spent on the change. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff can decide that SIForce is better than AIForce and tell his company to adopt it. Federal employees, meanwhile, are preparing guidance for agencies on how to make the switch. The order also directs federal agency heads to jointly draft a new legal definition of “superintelligence” and send it to the president by the end of this month.
I think the larger cost is the risk of making a shared conversation about AI harder. People already disagree sharply about the technology, including whether it will cause catastrophic job losses or lead to AI-enabled war. But those disagreements have not yet mapped neatly onto party divisions that make topics like immigration or climate change uncomfortable to discuss with strangers.
A vocabulary choice can change that. If “superintelligence” becomes a loyalty test, a conversation about whether chatbots help or harm mental health could end when people notice they use different terms. The order does not show that this is inevitable. But the Associated Press dispute shows how a preferred name can become a condition of access, and Trump’s criticism of the Journal extends the pressure beyond federal offices.
Midterm elections are tomorrow. Americans say AI matters more to them in those elections than environmental and climate policy; Democrats rank it above abortion and gun policy as well. The national debate is only beginning. Turning its vocabulary into a political signal risks narrowing that debate before people have had much chance to shape it.
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