Trump orders US diplomats to use 'super intelligence' instead of AI at UN
The US State Department has directed diplomats in its bureau dealing with international organisations to use the term "super intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" in official communications, after President Donald Trump announced the change in terminology at the UN General Assembly.
The order was issued in an email sent on Tuesday by Michael Drager, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. The bureau handles US diplomatic missions to the United Nations and other multilateral agencies worldwide. It was not immediately clear whether other State Department bureaus had followed or would follow the same instruction.
In the email, titled "Change in Nomenclature AI to SI," Drager told employees: "Following the president's remarks at the GA today, please change all references of Artificial Intelligence' to Super Intelligence' in our documents and positions. We will be using SI' in all remarks, positions and press elements moving forward." The email was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Trump had told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that he would "officially" change the name of AI, saying the current term makes the technology sound "fake". "The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It's actually amazing," he said. He added that, "from the point forward", US government documents "will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial. So it's super intelligence."
Drager's email was sent shortly after Trump's speech, but it was unclear by Wednesday whether similar instructions had gone to other agencies. Such a move would likely require changing the name of the "AI Force" announced by Trump over the weekend to the "SI Force".
On Wednesday, US representatives used the term SI at a UN Security Council meeting on AI, where technology executives urged the UN's most powerful body to put checks on the fast-developing technology. AI's rapid rise has led to warnings from company chief executives, lawmakers and others that the technology may outpace human ability to control it, and it has prompted calls for global guardrails.
Trump has opposed efforts to slow AI development through tighter government oversight, saying he does not want to hold back the industry and that the US must stay ahead of China. In a social media post on Monday, he said the US was leading China on AI and that he was "not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself."
AI is also expected to be a major subject when Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington from Wednesday. In sum, the change from "artificial intelligence" to "super intelligence" is already being pushed in US diplomatic communication, even as questions remain over how widely the new term will be adopted across the government.
