U.S. diplomats in one State Department bureau are being told to stop saying artificial intelligence and start saying super intelligence instead, following an order tied directly to President Donald Trump's remarks to the United Nations. The instruction landed in an email titled Change in Nomenclature AI to SI, sent to employees in the department's international organizations bureau, and it comes as the administration pushes a broader rebrand of the term that dominates global tech policy.
The order was issued by Michael Drager, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, according to WSLS. Drager instructed staff to replace every reference to Artificial Intelligence with Super Intelligence and to use the abbreviation SI in remarks, official positions and press materials going forward. That bureau oversees U.S. diplomatic missions to the United Nations and multilateral agencies worldwide, giving the directive reach across a wide swath of American diplomacy even if it originates from a single office.
The email itself was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, according to the Winnipeg Free Press, confirming both its title and its instructions to staff. U.S. representatives had already begun putting the new language into practice, using the term SI during a U.N. Security Council meeting focused on artificial intelligence, per the same WSLS report drawing on the AP's reporting via the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Trump Says 'Artificial' Makes Intelligence Sound Fake
The push traces back to Trump's address to the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday at United Nations headquarters, a 37-minute speech in which he said the U.S. government would start using the term super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence, according to Reuters. His reasoning, as reported by The Independent, was blunt: the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake.
It remains unclear whether the terminology shift amounts to a formal, government-wide order or whether other State Department bureaus will follow suit, according to Newsday. The change also carries potential knock-on effects: the AI Force that Trump announced this past weekend would likely need to be renamed the SI Force to match, per the WSLS report, though that renaming has not been confirmed.
Experts Doubt the Rebrand Will Stick
Outside the diplomatic corps, the reception has been skeptical. Experts told the BBC that super intelligence is unlikely to gain widespread traction in the tech industry, since the phrase is generally understood to describe systems far more advanced than what exists today. Digital ethics lecturer Simon Coghlan called the rebranding misleading, arguing that super intelligence typically refers to a system capable of improving itself, not the AI tools currently in use.
Computer scientist Kokil Jaidka went further, telling the BBC that the new name exaggerates current AI capabilities and borrows the prestige of a term researchers reserve for a much bigger technological leap. National University of Singapore lecturer Ben Leong made a similar point, saying professionals will likely want to save SI for a genuinely higher level of AI rather than apply it to today's systems. Despite the pushback, some administration figures have embraced the switch, with U.S. Chief Technology Officer and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz both invoking the new language, one declaring, “The Super Intelligence (SI) President has spoken!”
The Timing Behind the Push
The rebrand arrives as AI's rapid advancement continues to worry company executives, lawmakers and researchers, who have warned that the technology could outpace humans' ability to control it, per WSLS. Calls for global guardrails and for the U.N. to rein in AI have also featured in the debate, according to the BBC. Trump has rejected calls to slow the AI race through greater government oversight, arguing instead that the United States must maintain its edge over China, a message he posted on social media Monday.
The terminology fight also lands at a pointed moment: AI is expected to be a key topic when Trump welcomes Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Washington for a visit that began Wednesday. Whether super intelligence becomes the standard language across the federal government, or fades as a one-bureau experiment, is a question that remains open for now.
