AI oops, SI: Elon Musk's terminology slip on camera, Trump's reaction is viral
Just hours after US President Donald Trump directed his administration to replace the term “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence”, Elon Musk appeared to have a slip-up of his own, referring to the technology as “AI” before quickly catching himself and switching to “SI”.
The moment, captured on video and now circulating online, came during a White House event on Tuesday where Trump hosted Musk and several other prominent technology executives and signed an AI accord aimed at strengthening self-regulation within the industry.
While interacting with reporters after the signing, Trump noticed Musk standing some distance away and called out to him.
“Elon, I didn’t see you back there. What are you doing so far back there?” Trump said.
Musk then began speaking about the benefits of the technology. However, as he started his remarks, he referred to it using the term that the administration had just sought to move away from.
“I think it’s worth highlighting the positive benefits of AI—” Musk said, before pausing and correcting himself. “SI, pardon me,” he quickly added, using the abbreviation for “super intelligence”.
The brief exchange prompted laughter from Trump, who appeared to brush off Musk’s slip with a quick “Thank you” and a tap on his arm.
This comes shortly after Trump had directed his administration to use “super intelligence” in place of “artificial intelligence”, making the billionaire’s use of “AI” all the more noticeable during the event.
The White House said the new terminology “more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities” of the technology and directed federal agencies not to acknowledge the older terms in applicable settings.
The terminology shift came alongside Trump’s meeting with some of the biggest names in the technology industry, including Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The executives also signed a one-page voluntary agreement focused on self-regulation of the industry. Trump shared the document on his Truth Social platform after the meeting and had earlier described the accord as “morally binding”.
The agreement called for companies to put multiple layers of controls in place, including internal safeguards, independent external audits and board-level committees to review findings and oversee the measures.- Ends
