Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter instructed Justice Department employees on 6 October to replace “AI” with “Super Intelligence” in official communications, including court filings “when appropriate”, Bloomberg Law reported after reviewing his memo. McCotter cited President Donald Trump’s 29 September executive order directing federal agencies to adopt the terminology.
Key points
- McCotter’s 6 October memo directs Justice Department staff to use “Super Intelligence” in official communications.
- The instruction extends to court filings “when appropriate”.
- The memo cites Trump’s 29 September order and its limit of “the maximum extent permitted by law”.
- Staff are also directed to use “SI” in public communications, policy documents and other official records.
McCotter extends the instruction to court filings
The court-filing provision takes the instruction beyond the department’s public statements and policy documents. McCotter’s memo says the directive “shall extend to court filings when appropriate”, Reuters reported. That qualification matters to Justice Department lawyers preparing papers for a court: the memo does not frame the substitution as an instruction to use the new term in every filing.
In public communications, policy documents and other official records, employees are to use “super intelligence” and “SI” in place of AI “to the maximum extent permitted by law”, Reuters reported, citing the memo. Its account described the instruction as applying when employees refer to the technology in most circumstances, including in court.
Four people familiar with the matter said a senior Trump administration official had told the department to adopt the president’s terminology, NBC News reported. McCotter’s written instruction identifies the official responsible for carrying that direction into the department’s work and puts the court-filing qualification alongside the direction to staff.
Trump’s 29 September order reaches federal agencies
Trump’s executive order of 29 September directed federal agencies to adopt the terminology. AI Affairs previously reported the instruction to agencies. McCotter cited the order’s requirement to use the new language “to the maximum extent permitted by law” in government duties, according to Bloomberg Law.
McCotter also quoted the order’s explanation for the change: federal terminology should reflect what it called the “transformative capabilities” of technologies developed by American innovators, Bloomberg Law reported. That is the administration’s stated account of the technology, now carried into an instruction on the words department employees use in their work.
Trump said the substitution would better describe the technology’s potential, Reuters reported. The same account said the president had resisted new regulation of the technology while saying the Justice Department would intervene if necessary. McCotter’s memo concerns the department’s terminology rather than an exercise of that regulatory power.
California agencies receive a different instruction
The federal direction does not produce a single vocabulary across American government. AI Affairs previously reported Governor Gavin Newsom’s order that California agencies continue to call the technology artificial intelligence.
