President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. government to stop calling it "artificial intelligence" and start saying "super intelligence" instead. According to TechCrunch's Equity podcast, this rebrand came via executive order.
The timing is revealing. Days before this announcement, Trump was arguing that AI regulations would damage American competitiveness and that anyone worried about AI safety was a "Chinese or Democratic plant." Then he convened major tech leaders for a "Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities" that everyone signed, with one caveat: it is completely non-binding.
TechCrunch's Kirsten Korosec was direct about what happened: this is "a rebranding effort around AI." The message is simple. "AI is going to kill us, it's scary, it will take jobs, but super intelligence is not." The product stays the same; only the label changes.
It mirrors standard corporate damage control: when scandal hits, bring in new spokespeople and rebrand. Here, the stakes are trillion-dollar AI companies instead of consumer goods. Trump called the commitment "morally binding", a phrase that means there are no legal consequences if anyone breaks it.
Two weeks before this summit, Trump dismissed AI safety concerns. Now he is hosting safety meetings and announcing a "Super Intelligence Force." What shifted was pressure from industry players and the recognition that public fear undermines technology adoption. A rebrand became necessary.
Renaming artificial intelligence to "super intelligence" probably will not reshape public perception. The public will continue calling it AI, and the underlying safety questions remain unanswered. But the effort itself signals that tech leaders and the administration are concerned enough to try.
