Trump’s answer to AI’s image problem: Industry self-regulation and a new name

US President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government to call artificial intelligence “Super Intelligence,” while keeping the technology’s legal definition unchanged and relying on industry to set the rules for its use. In an executive order, the White House administration said modern systems “far exceed what was envisioned when the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ first came into use,” adding they “increasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence, but a new era of Super Intelligence.” “It is therefore the policy of my Administration that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch shall use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in place of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’,” Trump ordered. The executive branch “will not acknowledge” the older terms in any applicable setting, the order stated. Yet the order defines the new term using the old one. Section 3 of the order says Super Intelligence means the technologies and systems covered by the statutory definition of artificial intelligence in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3). That equivalence may not last. The order gives the White House 60 days to propose a new legal definition. Trump also put the new name to u…

≈