Artificial intelligence must have a new name, says politician who likes renaming bodies of water

Meet ‘superintelligence’ and the ‘globalist scheme’ – probably a polite diplomatic letter – to control it

US president Donald Trump has decided the term “artificial intelligence” must be abandoned, in favour of his preferred term “superintelligence.”

“The word ‘artificial’ makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake,” Trump told the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday. “From this point forward, all United States documents and hopefully the world will be changed to use the much more accurate term ‘super’ as opposed to ‘artificial.’”

The president allowed that the acronym “SI” might be used as a substitute for his polysyllabic suggestion, seemingly without a thought for that acronym already being taken by the world’s system integrators. The leader of the free world also appears not to have given much thought to how the term might be adapted: The Register can see the term “AI slop” evolving into “superslop” – a term that might have wide applicability to debate on how best to name the technology.

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Trump also offered the following comment about AI regulation: “The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for … artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now  … here and after officially called superintelligence.” He also said the danger of AI is a ”hoax,” as is anthropogenic climate change, despite the USA’s own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last month reporting that July was the warmest month on record for the contiguous United States.

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Despite his belief AI/SI doesn’t need oversight, Trump pledged the USA will watch the technology “closely through the Department of Justice.” That appears to be a change from his recent promise to create an “AI Force” – presumably now a Superintelligence Force – patterned on a branch of the US military to regulate AI/SI.

It is unclear what Trump meant by the “globalist scheme” to regulate AI.

It might be a reference to calls to “pace the frontier” of AI/SI development, some of which come from leading AI companies.

Or maybe Trump was referring to the Call for Control of Frontier AI Models issued on Monday by the government of Finland, and signed by leaders from the European Union, Norway, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates.

Many of those nations are US allies.

Signatories to the Call suggested three outcomes:

1. Companies to develop transparent safety protocols, including mandatory pre-deployment testing and independent evaluation, with qualified evaluators granted sufficient access to assess risks.

2. Governments and regional organisations to further develop and coordinate common standards, strengthen transparency – including shared reporting of serious safety incidents – and ensure that countries across all regions have access to scientific capacity, expertise and trusted evaluation.

3. UN member states to build on existing international mechanisms and explore creating an international institution, able to set standards, enable verification, and convene states when capability thresholds are crossed.

Trump previously renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and recently changed Lake Ontario to Lake America. He also reversed a past decision to use the indigenous name Denali for the USA’s highest mountain.

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If you can think of another technology that deserves presidential re-naming, hit the comments. ®