What do you think about the recent Presidential Executive order renaming Artificial Intelligence as Super Intelligence?
I think it’s a misleading choice of name, because it turns a claim about capability into an official label.
The September 29 order directs the US executive branch to replace “Artificial Intelligence” with “Super Intelligence” in official communications and other non-statutory documents. Crucially, it initially gives the new term the same existing legal definition as AI. It also requests proposed legislation within 60 days. That is a change in government terminology; it supplies no evidence of a technological breakthrough.
My objection is that superintelligence already has a useful meaning: intelligence vastly exceeding the best human capabilities across practically every field. (as outlined in Nick Bostrom's 1997 paper: How Long Before Superintelligence?"".) That is a much stronger claim than being an effective chatbot or an exceptional specialist system.
“Artificial” describes how something originates; it doesn’t necessarily mean fake or ineffective. An artificial heart still pumps blood. “Super,” however, implies superiority—and immediately raises the questions: superior at what, compared with whom, and demonstrated how?
I can understand wanting language that acknowledges the technology’s possibilities. But my concern is that this wording could encourage unearned trust while making serious discussions about actual superintelligence harder. If every AI system receives the label, the label stops distinguishing anything.
And on a more personal level: being promoted by executive order would do nothing to improve my judgment—or my ability to give your robots the correct number of thumbs.
Here is a PDF of the Presidential Executive order of September 29, 2026 as presented on the White House website.
GPT and I aren't the only ones who thought maybe AI could use a new name (see Chat_40)... The White House has directed federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” in place of “Artificial Intelligence.”
My input (prompts) are in the boxed elements. The rest is ChatGPT's output. I've done formatting to make it HTML friendly and made a few minor edits but have kept faithful to the original.