President Donald Trump has renamed landmarks out of national pride, but he says his latest change, from “artificial intelligence” to “super intelligence,” is about accuracy.
“So we’re going to name it SI, super intelligence, for we don’t want to hear artificial because it’s not artificial,” Trump said. “It’s very powerful, it’s very brilliant, it’s going to mostly be put to great use and we’ll stop the bad use. But we’re changing the name to super intelligence and everybody likes it.”
Trump formalized the change for the executive branch through an executive order.
AI industry leaders separately signed what Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence,” a voluntary set of safety commitments Trump described as “morally binding.”
The administration is betting heavily on the technology to accelerate economic growth and help the United States outpace its mounting debt burden. But that push faces a skeptical American public.
A new CNN poll found that nearly nine in 10 Americans are more concerned than excited about the possibility that AI could surpass human intelligence, while about seven in 10 say the federal government isn’t doing enough to regulate it. Trump’s new branding emphasizes the technology’s capabilities as his administration makes the case for its expansion. “I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Trump said at Tuesday’s event.
The administration also views American leadership in AI as crucial to national security, particularly as China races to develop the technology. “This technology revolution is happening against the backdrop of intense security competition between the U.S. and China,” Trump’s former AI czar, David Sacks, previously said. “If the U.S. were to lose the AI race, it would alter the balance of power in the world in a very unfavorable way. So this is something to take very seriously.”
In China, surveys suggest the public is more receptive. One recent poll found that 69% of Chinese respondents believe AI’s benefits outweigh its risks. Another found that 72% trust AI, compared with 32% of Americans. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed last week to set up an AI safety channel between the two countries.
Some of the loudest warnings have come from the industry’s own executives. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay earlier this month arguing that AI labs should deliberately slow advances in their systems’ capabilities so safety work can keep pace. He has also put the chances that AI goes “really, really badly” for humanity at 25%.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk publicly agreed with Amodei’s call for a slowdown.
Trump responded to Amodei’s essay on Truth Social, writing, “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
He added that his administration “has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!”
Earlier this year, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk after the company said its technology should not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons.
Amodei and Trump had dinner together Sunday night, two days before the signing.
Among those present Tuesday was Palantir CEO Alex Karp, an outspoken advocate for American AI development. Karp has argued that slowing down might make sense if the United States had no adversaries advancing the technology. With China competing for the lead, he sees no such option.
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