President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 29 September directing US executive departments and agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official non-statutory materials. Trump signed it during a White House luncheon with technology executives, Yeni Şafak reported.
Key points
- Agencies must adopt the new terms in correspondence, websites, reports and other non-statutory documents, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
- For now, the order gives the new terms the meaning of the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence.
- The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology must submit proposed legislative language to Trump within 60 days of the order.
- Previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts and grants need not be altered.
Section 2 changes agencies’ working language
Section 2 applies naming requirements to agency letters, outward-facing messages, web pages, written findings, policy papers, plus further texts outside statutory law. It directs agencies to substitute both the full term and its abbreviation, subject to the limits of applicable law. The order also states, in its policy section, that the executive branch will not acknowledge use of the older terms in any applicable setting.
The instruction concerns material agencies produce under their own authority. Section 2 says it does not require changes to previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants or other historical documents. Section 4 preserves authority already granted by law to departments, agencies and their heads, as well as the Office of Management and Budget director’s functions concerning budgetary, administrative and legislative proposals.
Trump’s stated reason for the change is his assessment of what current systems can do. Section 1 describes American research as the origin of the modern field of artificial intelligence and argues that its existing name no longer fits the capabilities of frontier systems. Those assertions supply the order’s rationale. The instruction to agencies is the operative change: a preferred term in presidential remarks becomes the language required across their non-statutory communications.
Section 3 keeps the statutory definition in use
For the purposes of the order, section 3 defines “Super Intelligence” and “SI” by reference to the technologies and systems covered by “artificial intelligence” in section 9401(3) of title 15 of the United States Code, except where law provides otherwise. That definition governs implementation until a subsequent presidential action consistent with applicable law, or an Act of Congress, supersedes it.
The same section assigns the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology a separate task: propose legislative language establishing a federal definition of the new terms. The assistant may consult agency heads as the assistant considers appropriate. The proposal must assess whether, and to what extent, the new definition should modify, expand upon or supersede the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence.
It must also contain any proposed amendments appropriate to existing statutory references to “artificial intelligence” and “AI”, alongside recommendations for further presidential or executive action needed to apply the proposed definition throughout the executive branch. That work goes beyond replacing words on agency websites. It asks the science adviser to put possible changes to statutory language before the president, while the current order continues to rely on the definition already in law.
Trump’s White House lunch joined language and oversight
The order was signed at a lunch attended by technology executives including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Trump said executives had signed a commitment to police their companies’ AI models and called it “morally binding”, CNN reported. That commitment was discussed alongside his preference for the new name, but the executive order’s instructions are addressed to government departments and agencies.
Trump also said his administration was considering a committee of perhaps 10 people to oversee the field, Yeni Şafak reported. The executive order instead assigns the terminology instruction to agencies and the legislative drafting task to the White House science adviser. Section 4 requires implementation to comply with applicable law and to depend on available appropriations. It creates no legally enforceable right or benefit for a party against the government or anyone else.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy bears the cost of publishing the order. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology must submit the proposed legislative language to Trump within 60 days of 29 September.
