The President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated on Thursday (8) that people or companies that continue to use the term 'artificial intelligence' instead of 'superintelligence' (SI, as an English acronym) would be considered 'enemies' of the White House. The statement was published by Trump on the Truth Social network, amid a government-promoted change in how the technology is referred to.
According to Trump, 'superintelligence' would be a more accepted and accurate term than 'artificial intelligence'. At the end of September, after meeting with technology sector leaders, the president signed an executive order determining that federal departments and agencies should use 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' instead of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in official communications, websites, and other materials.
The determination, however, does not apply to private companies, such as OpenAI. The White House would not have legal authority to compel companies to adopt the new terminology. Nonetheless, at least one company has already signaled its intention to follow the change. Elon Musk stated that the artificial intelligence unit of SpaceX, currently named SpaceXAI, will be renamed to SpaceXSI. The change would be the second name alteration of the unit this year.
The term change also caused some curious situations during an event at the White House on Thursday. The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, corrected himself after using "AI" instead of "SI". The president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, stated during a local discussion that the company "builds artificial intelligence" to help people.
The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has also previously commented on the possibility of a name change. In a recent interview, he said there are no plans to change the company's name, although the company has discussed and continues to talk about superintelligence. It is still unclear whether other technology companies will follow the change advocated by Trump.
Ana Figueiredo is the technology editor at Olhar Digital. She is a graduate in Journalism from the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU).
