President Trump says the government will “officially” ban the term AI, also known as artificial intelligence. He announced it in a Truth Social post and wants the Wall Street Journal to start calling the technology “Super Intelligence” instead. Here’s the catch: nobody, including the White House, has explained what a ban on two letters would actually look like.
The announcement came Tuesday in a Truth Social post reported by Reuters. Trump asked when the Journal would start calling AI, in his words “a very bad and inaccurate name,” SI, or Super Intelligence. He called that “the name which virtually everyone else is using, or soon will be.”
Then came the line that set off the news cycle. Trump wrote: “In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term, ‘AI/Artificial Intelligence,’ in all relevant documents, and everything else, due to its inaccuracy.” That is as quoted by Mediaite.
Why the AI Name Ban Has No Details Yet
The post does not say how the ban would work or when it starts. As of Wednesday, no new executive order, regulation or enforcement mechanism had been announced. Gizmodo notes that a real ban would likely need a new enforcement tool, according to its report on the post.
Mediaite asked how the government could ban a term at all, given the First Amendment. The White House Press Office replied with three words: “refer to the TRUTH.” That points back to Trump’s post, which does not address the legal question. HuffPost reports the White House also did not say what penalties might apply.
It is also the kind of splashy announcement that tends to crowd the news cycle in election season, much like the $1.4 billion midterm betting boom that markets are chasing.
The Super Intelligence Rename Has Been Building for Weeks
The rebrand is not new. A Sept. 29 executive order already requires federal officials to use “Super Intelligence” or “SI,” according to Variety. The order says the new name better captures the technology’s “promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities.” Earlier this month, Trump posted that the White House “considers” anyone who says artificial intelligence instead of Super Intelligence to be “THE ENEMY!” In September, he also told the UN General Assembly that the U.S. would rename the technology in its documents, The Hill reports. His argument is that the word “artificial” makes the technology sound “fake.”
The Pushback From the AI World
Here’s the thing for everyone who reads, writes or searches for this stuff: the old name has real history. Variety notes that “artificial intelligence” was coined more than 70 years ago. People use it across computer science and the tech industry. Even the Trump White House used “AI” last year in its AI Action Plan, Deadline points out.
There is also a vocabulary problem. AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton has noted that “superintelligence” already exists as a technical term. It means a system smarter than people. That is a much bigger claim than what today’s chatbots do. Researchers are not rushing to swap labels for that reason.
Some in tech are playing along. Deadline notes that Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is going with the new term, while most newsrooms still say AI.
What to Watch Next as Trump Vows to Ban the Term AI
Look for a follow-up from the White House. That could be a new order, agency guidance or anything that spells out what “banning” means. Any reaction from the Journal or press-freedom groups would come next.
The timing is hard to miss. Variety notes the post landed one week before the midterm elections, when the Fed’s split vote on rates and tight races are already driving headlines. For now, a ban on the term “AI” is mostly a headline. We’ll see if it turns into a rule.
