President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on 27 October that he would ban the term “AI/Artificial Intelligence” in “all relevant documents, and everything else”, Reuters reported. The pledge goes beyond an executive order Trump signed on 29 September directing federal agencies to use “super intelligence”: his latest wording reaches beyond government documents, and he pressed the Wall Street Journal to adopt his preferred name.
Key points
- Trump says he will ban “AI/Artificial Intelligence” in relevant documents and “everything else”.
- A 29 September executive order already directs federal agencies to use “super intelligence”.
- Trump challenged the Wall Street Journal over its terminology, while Deadline reports that his authority to compel public adoption is limited.
- A previous White House dispute over a place name led to restrictions on the Associated Press’s access and a court challenge.
Trump presses the Wall Street Journal
Trump called artificial intelligence “a very bad and inaccurate name” in the post. He asked when the Wall Street Journal would begin using “SI (Super Intelligence)”, saying that virtually everyone else was using the term or soon would. That assertion about usage was Trump’s. His stated reason for the proposed ban was the inaccuracy he attributed to the existing name.
His choice of target takes the dispute beyond the wording of federal communications. The Journal is a newspaper, rather than an agency subject to the September order. Trump’s post placed the question to its editors alongside his pledge about documents, without limiting that pledge to material produced by the government.
Deadline reported that Trump had also stressed his preferred name at a White House meeting with Elon Musk and other technology executives in September. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang was among the figures who went along with the terminology, according to Deadline. Media outlets have continued using AI, the publication reported, despite the president’s preference.
The 29 September order covers agencies
Trump signed the executive order on 29 September, directing federal agencies to use “super intelligence”. That instruction concerns the language used by agencies. His 27 October post promises a ban on the earlier term in relevant documents and “everything else”, extending the words of his pledge beyond the agencies named in the order.
The Justice Department told staff to use “Super Intelligence” in court filings, AI Affairs reported. California took the opposite course: Governor Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to retain “artificial intelligence”. Those instructions address officials writing on behalf of their respective governments, rather than the newspaper Trump named in his post.
The White House itself used the earlier term in an “AI Action Plan” released last year. The publication also described the president’s authority to compel adoption of “super intelligence” by the public as limited. Trump’s September order gives federal agencies a direction to use his preferred name; his latest statement also asks for a change from organisations outside that chain of command.
Associated Press challenged a White House restriction
The White House has previously restricted a news organisation’s access in a dispute over naming. It barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and removed it from the White House pool because the organisation did not switch from Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. That dispute concerned access to White House reporting arrangements, rather than an instruction to a federal agency about its own documents.
The Associated Press sued over those restrictions. A federal judge ruled that the White House was likely violating the First Amendment, and the judge’s decision is on appeal.
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