AI was boycotted by the US, and Trump made a big move to change its name: later it will be called “superintelligence”

The Zhitong Finance App learned that US President Trump believes that artificial intelligence (AI) is facing a brand image crisis, and he plans to resolve this problem by trying to officially change the name of the technology to “super intelligence.”

On Tuesday, Trump hosted a dinner with nearly 20 Silicon Valley leaders at the White House to discuss AI risks. A few hours after lunch, he signed an executive order requiring federal government agencies to uniformly refer to this technology as “superintelligence,” abbreviated as SI, in all official documents and communications.

“As relevant capabilities continue to be iterated, it represents a new era of not only artificial intelligence, but also superintelligence,” the executive order reads.

The name change is intended to reverse the public's increasingly negative perception of AI. The promotion of AI in the US has sparked nationwide opposition, and people are worried that this technology will push up electricity prices and take jobs from Americans. A poll released by Quinnipiac University on Tuesday found that 71% of respondents supported stricter regulation of AI, and 73% expressed opposition to building new data centers in their own communities.

In the face of these objections, Trump insisted on developing the technology at full speed. Since returning to the White House last year, he has always chosen to stand with the AI industry and place AI at the center of his economic agenda, seeing it as the key to maintaining America's technological advantage and safeguarding national security.

However, changing the name of AI to “superintelligence” may cause new naming disputes within the tech industry. For a long time, AI developers have used “superintelligence” to refer to an imaginary level of AI, that is, models far surpass humans in a wide range of fields such as science and social skills, and can iterate and upgrade themselves without human intervention.

As of now, even the top AI models on the market today are far from this level. Even so, concerns that an extremely complex system might gain the ability to improve itself and escape human control have prompted calls for restraint in its development.

Vermont's non-partisan Senator Bernie Sanders and Texas Democratic Representative Greg Casall co-proposed a bill calling for a mandatory moratorium on the development and deployment of super-smart AI until a dedicated federal agency is formed to oversee the technology. Although this 19-page bill is almost impossible to pass in a deeply divided Congress, it still shows growing concerns about AI security risks.

It's unclear whether tech industry leaders will accept this name change, but in Trump's presence after the event, several participants, including SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, have already adopted a new title, actively changed their rhetoric, and replaced AI with SI.

“The name has officially been changed by the best, smartest, and most powerful person in the world,” Trump said while appearing with the attendees after the luncheon. “We used the word 'super' because the word itself was false.”