Super Intelligence or Artificial Intelligence?

• Trump told the UN on 22 September that “artificial” sounds fake, so US documents will now say, “super intelligence” (SI)
• The article calls it a PR stunt and argues “artificial” simply means made by people, which is exactly what AI is
• “Super intelligence” already means something that surpasses human thinking, which is still hypothetical, so using it for today’s AI skips two rungs of the ladder
• Renaming is risky because the new name promises more than the product delivers, as New Coke, Gap and Tropicana learned
• Keep “artificial intelligence” for now and save “super intelligence” for when something genuinely out thinks us

What Trump Actually Said About AI

Some of you may have caught Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on 22 September. He told the room that “artificial” makes intelligence sound fake and that US documents would now say “super intelligence” or SI. The US State Department’s international organisations bureau has advised staff to use “SI” in all remarks, positions and press elements, as reported by The Hill and Euronews.

On first look, it sounds like a classic PR stunt the Donald pulls every time. Remember the Gulf of Mexico becoming the Gulf of America? Now the technology behind ChatGPT and your email drafts gets a new name too.

We can concur that the word “artificial” does carry baggage. But baggage on its own doesn’t make a word wrong. Consider the things we happily call artificial, like artificial turf, artificial sweetener, artificial hips or the artificial Christmas tree. Nobody with fake grass in their yard or a new knee feels insulted by the label. Artificial means made by people rather than found in nature. That is exactly what this technology is and the term describes it well.

Why “Super Intelligence” Is the Wrong Label for Today’s AI

The bigger problem is that “super intelligence” is already taken. In AI circles it broadly means a system that surpasses human cognition and it sits at the centre of arguments about whether the most advanced systems should be slowed or even banned. Merriam-Webster defines it as a form of artificial intelligence that exceeds human intelligence. So, the rebrand swaps a modest word for one that already carries a definition and a much heavier meaning. Axios points out that Trump doesn’t seem to be talking about that kind of superintelligent AI at all.

AI researchers describe it like a ladder with three rungs:

• Narrow AI: The spam filter, the map app, the chatbot that writes your birthday poem and still invents a footnote with total confidence
• Artificial general intelligence: A system that can match people across most tasks, which nobody has built yet
• Superintelligence: Something that leaves us well behind, which is still hypothetical

Philosopher David Chalmers argues that general intelligence is a likely path to artificial superintelligence (Wikipedia). Calling today’s tools “super” means jumping two rungs without touching the ladder. It’s like describing a hatchback as a rocket because it got you to Bunnings quickly.

Now to the question in our heads. What we have built is intelligence of our own making, running on our computing methods. It probably works a million times faster than we can think and it hands back information we gave it access to. A calculator beats us at long division every time and nobody has handed it a cape. Speed and access are impressive, but they don’t amount to superiority. A library holds more knowledge than any human and we’ve never called the librarian a superhuman. Are they all super?

That leads to the awkward follow up. If the intelligence is super, what do we call the people who built it? Superhumans sound lovely on a LinkedIn headline, but I doubt the engineers would fit it on a business card. Artificial humans are out because they are humans, the coffee dependent kind who still can’t find the right meeting room. The naming logic only works if we are willing to follow it all the way down.

The Rebrand Graveyard: What Marketers Already Know

Marketing people know this trap. You can rename a product in an afternoon, but the new name will promise whatever the customer expects to see. The graveyard is well stocked:

• New Coke (1985): Coca Cola changed the recipe and had the original back on shelves within about three months. Customers wanted Coke and said so loudly
• Gap (2010): A new logo lasted six days at a reported cost of about $100 million. It looked like a default font from a word processor
• Tropicana (2009): The orange with a straw was swapped for a flat, minimal look at a cost of roughly $35 million. It was pulled off the shelves in under two months and sales reportedly dropped by about a fifth
• Pepsi (2008): New York agency behind the new logo compared it to the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon and planetary orbits to justify the $1 million price tag. Most shoppers never noticed the change
• Twitter to X (2023): Most of us still say Twitter
• McLaren (2026): The new wordmark was revealed recently. Commenters likened it to the Marriott Bonvoy mark and some enthusiasts said it made a supercar maker look like a jewellery brand

Call AI “SI” and people will expect miracles or monsters. Call it artificial and people will expect a tool which is currently right for software that apologises and then gets the email wrong anyway. So, keep “artificial intelligence” for what we have now. Save super intelligence for the day something genuinely out thinks us. Handing out the title early is like naming your newborn Einstein. Let’s wait for the school report.

Sources:

• The Hill, “Trump says AI will be renamed ‘super intelligence’ in all US documents”: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6104142-trump-renames-ai-super-intelligence/
• Euronews, “‘Artificial’ is out: Trump orders officials to call it ‘super intelligence’ instead”: https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/24/artificial-is-out-trump-orders-officials-to-call-it-super-intelligence-instead
• Axios, “Inside Trump’s ‘super intelligence’ naming problem”: https://www.axios.com/2026/09/25/trump-ai-super-intelligence-tech-definition
• Wikipedia, “Superintelligence”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence
• Zamora Design, “Lessons From The Worst Rebrands in History”: https://zamora.design/lessons-from-the-worst-rebrands-in-history/
• Medium, “The Most Expensive Rebrands in History”: https://medium.com/startup-insider-edge/the-most-expensive-rebrands-in-history-a74692f7350a
• Hagerty, “McLaren’s New Logo Throws Back For The Future”: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/mclarens-new-logo-throws-back-for-the-future/