Diplomats within the State Department's international organizations bureau have been instructed to replace the term "artificial intelligence" with "super intelligence" across all official communications, following a rebranding push introduced by President Donald Trump during his address to the U.N. General Assembly this week.
In an internal email sent to staff on Tuesday, Michael Drager, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, outlined the new mandate: "Following the president’s remarks at the GA today, please change all references to ‘Artificial Intelligence’ to ‘Super Intelligence’ in our documents and positions. We will be using ‘SI’ in all remarks, positions and press elements moving forward."
The bureau manages U.S. diplomatic missions across global U.N. and multilateral agencies. The memo, titled "Change in Nomenclature AI to SI," was obtained on Wednesday. It remains unclear whether the State Department has issued identical instructions to other divisions.
Addressing world leaders on Tuesday, Trump stated that he would "officially" rename the technology, arguing that the existing label makes advanced computing sound inauthentic. "The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing," Trump said. He added at the U.N. that "from the point forward" official records "will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial. So it’s super intelligence."
While Drager’s directive was issued shortly after the speech, it was not immediately clear on Wednesday if similar guidance was distributed across other government agencies. Such a policy shift could also require renaming the "AI Force" initiative Trump announced over the weekend as the "SI Force."
By Wednesday, U.S. officials were observed using the "SI" terminology during a U.N. Security Council meeting concerning the sector, where technology executives urged international leaders to establish boundaries for the rapidly advancing systems.
The swift evolution of the technology has prompted warnings from lawmakers, corporate leaders, and experts regarding potential risks if human control is lost, leading to calls for unified global regulations. However, Trump has consistently rejected proposals to curb development through federal regulation, arguing that oversight could hamper industry progress and weaken the nation's advantage over China.
Posting on social media on Monday, Trump asserted U.S. dominance in the sector and insisted he was "not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself." Technology policy is expected to feature heavily when Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington for talks beginning Wednesday.
