Trump: Will formally ban the term “artificial intelligence (AI)” as soon as possible
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on October 27, 2026, that he would formally ban the term “artificial intelligence (AI)” as soon as possible. He wrote in the post: “When will The Wall Street Journal start calling Artificial Intelligence (AI), a very bad and inaccurate name, SI (Super Intelligence), the name which virtually everyone else is using, or soon will be. In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term, ‘AI/Artificial Intelligence,’ in all relevant documents, and everything else, due to its inaccuracy.”
This statement follows Executive Order No. 14434, signed on September 29, 2026, titled Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence. The order requires the executive branch, to the maximum extent permitted by law, to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents instead of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI,” and no longer recognize the use of the old terms; it also stipulates that there is no requirement to revise regulations, presidential actions, contracts, appropriations or other historical documents already published. The order also directs the President’s Science and Technology Advisor (APST) to submit proposed legislative language within 60 days, assessing whether and how to replace existing statutory definitions with the new terminology.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the terminology change reflects the administration’s emphasis on technological potential, American innovation and economic leadership. The post did not specify the implementation mechanism for the “ban,” the exact timetable, or whether its scope extends beyond the executive branch.
Original sources:
Title: When will The Wall Street Journal start calling Artificial Intelligence (AI), a very bad and inaccurate name, SI (Super Intelligence)... Publisher: Donald J. Trump (Truth Social) Publication date: 2026-10-27 URL：https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/117513761542349273 Source type: post by the party involved Verification status: full post content read in this retrieval Supporting content: Trump’s original words and the statement that it will be formally banned as soon as possible
Title: Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence Publisher: The White House Publication date: 2026-09-29 URL：https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/inaugurating-the-era-of-super-intelligence/ Source type: official announcement Verification status: full text of the executive order read in this retrieval Supporting content: content of Executive Order No. 14434, scope of application, no retroactive effect, and the 60-day legislative recommendation requirement
Title: Donald Trump Threatens to Ban Term 'AI': List of Words President Has Banned Publisher: Newsweek Publication date: 2026-10-27 URL：https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ai-term-banned-words-list-12625820 Source type: media report Verification status: main body of the report read in this retrieval Supporting content: statement by White House spokesperson Liz Huston and background explanation
Title: Trump says he will ban term artificial intelligence Publisher: Reuters Publication date: 2026-10-27 URL：https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-he-will-ban-term-artificial-intelligence-2026-10-27/ Source type: media report Verification status: full report read in this retrieval Supporting content: basic facts of the event and paraphrase of the post
ABAB AI Insight
The direct context for Trump’s push to replace the terminology can be traced back to September 2026. He first launched a poll on Truth Social comparing options such as “Superior Intelligence,” “Extreme Intelligence,” and “Supreme Intelligence,” and later, in a UN General Assembly speech, criticized the word “artificial” as giving the impression of “fake intelligence,” saying that U.S. documents “hope the world” will also switch to SI. On September 29, after meeting with business leaders including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei, Sundar Pichai, and Greg Brockman, he signed the executive order and released the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence.” The accord is a voluntary commitment requiring companies to establish internal monitoring and audit mechanisms in areas such as cybersecurity and biosecurity.
The path of the executive order is: the president uses executive authority to direct the terminology of the executive branch, while also requiring the APST to submit legislative recommendations within 60 days on whether and how to amend the federal statutory definition (currently SI is defined in the executive order as technology covered by 15 U.S.C. 9401(3)). On the funding and resource side, the government had previously announced more than $5 billion for the “Genesis Mission” to advance related technologies in science, medicine, energy and manufacturing. On the corporate side, Elon Musk has said he will rename the relevant business from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI; most other companies continue to use the AI wording. In early October, Trump had posted that those who continue to use “Artificial Intelligence” are “THE ENEMY,” further intensifying public pressure.
In technical literature, “artificial intelligence” has long referred to systems capable of performing tasks related to human intelligence, while “superintelligence” usually refers to a theoretical or future form that surpasses human capabilities in all respects. Trump’s usage makes the latter a complete substitute for the former, rather than preserving the distinction between the two levels. A similar precedent is Trump’s earlier adjustments to geographic names (such as the wording related to the Gulf of Mexico), which mainly affect government documents and official communications and have limited constraints on private usage. The similarity here is the use of executive direction to standardize terminology; the difference is that the executive order also sets out a path to propose changes to statutory definitions to Congress, along with an industry voluntary agreement.
For the federal executive branch, the terminology change has entered the implementation stage through the executive order, and websites, reports and communications will gradually shift to SI wording, without retroactively changing existing documents. For private companies, media and the public, the available material does not show legal compulsion; the statement about banning it “in all relevant documents and everywhere else” goes beyond the scope of the published executive order, and its specific mechanism and enforcement still depend on subsequent actions. Observational indicators include the content of the legislative recommendations submitted by the APST within the 60-day window and the actual pace of terminology replacement in contracts, appropriations and non-statutory documents at federal agencies.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Executive orders can unify government terminology, but cannot directly bind statutory definitions and everyday use in the private sphere.
Using “super intelligence” as a complete substitute for “artificial intelligence” blurs the original distinction in capability levels between the two in technical literature.