Technology
Artificial Intelligence Was Apparently Too Accurate
There was nothing particularly mysterious about the term **Artificial Intelligence
There was nothing particularly mysterious about the term **Artificial Intelligence**.
In fact, it had one enormous advantage over much of modern political language:
**it actually described the thing.**
Artificial.
Intelligence.
Artificial intelligence.
Two words. Meaning included.
Then Donald Trump decided that apparently this was not good enough.
Speaking at the United Nations on September 22, Trump announced that what the world had been calling Artificial Intelligence would now be, in his terminology, **“Super Intelligence.”** The White House itself published his wording: Artificial Intelligence was “hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence.’” Reuters likewise reported that the U.S. government would use Trump’s preferred term.
A few days later, the White House said Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to use **“super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence”** in their bilateral discussions and announced a U.S.-China Super Intelligence Dialogue.
There is only one small problem.
**Artificial Intelligence and Super Intelligence do not mean the same thing.**
Artificial Intelligence describes the nature of the technology.
It tells you what kind of intelligence we are talking about: intelligence created artificially rather than naturally occurring biological intelligence.
Super Intelligence, on the other hand, sounds like a description of how powerful, impressive or advanced the intelligence supposedly is.
One is a category.
The other is a characteristic.
Replacing one with the other does not clarify language.
It destroys the distinction.
It is approximately the same linguistic achievement as deciding that the word **automobile** is boring and announcing that every automobile shall henceforth officially be known as:
**SUPER TRANSPORTATION**
A Ferrari?
Super Transportation.
A fifteen-year-old Corolla with the check-engine light glowing?
Super Transportation.
A rusty delivery van leaking something mysterious onto the pavement?
Also Super Transportation.
Perhaps even *car* itself is insufficiently magnificent.
We could simply return to **Wagon**.
Or perhaps **Hyper Wagon**, because apparently adding an impressive adjective now constitutes technological progress.
The minivan could finally receive the dignity it has been denied:
**MEGA FAMILY MOBILITY**
A house?
Why use a simple word that everybody understands?
From now on:
**PREMIUM HUMAN SHELTER**
A refrigerator?
Far too descriptive.
Try:
**COLD FREEDOM CABINET**
A bicycle?
**ADVANCED HUMAN-POWERED MOBILITY**
An umbrella?
**PERSONAL ATMOSPHERIC DEFENSE SYSTEM**
A chair?
**PREMIUM VERTICAL REST PLATFORM**
And the toilet, one of civilization’s genuinely successful inventions, surely deserves a title worthy of twenty-first-century government terminology:
**THE AMERICAN WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM**
Nothing about any of these objects has changed.
The car has not become faster.
The minivan has not become more advanced.
The refrigerator has not acquired additional cooling capability.
The chair has not achieved consciousness.
The toilet remains a toilet.
Someone has merely removed a useful name and replaced it with advertising copy.
And that is precisely what makes the attempted transformation of **Artificial Intelligence** into **Super Intelligence** so absurd.
Artificial Intelligence may not be a philosophically perfect expression.
Scientists, engineers and philosophers can argue endlessly about what constitutes intelligence, whether present systems genuinely possess it and where machine intelligence ultimately ends.
But at least the name attempts to describe the phenomenon.
**Super Intelligence does not.**
It begins with a sales pitch.
It tells us not what the technology is, but what somebody would like us to think about it.
It is the difference between writing **car** on the registration papers and writing **Amazing Car**.
The second version may contain more enthusiasm.
It does not contain more information.
China’s reaction makes the whole episode even better.
After the summit, the Chinese Foreign Ministry was specifically asked why the American account used “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.”
Beijing’s answer was exquisitely diplomatic.
China, it said, **“respects their choice of the term.”** The ministry then immediately continued talking about the development of **artificial intelligence** and said the sides could keep exchanging views as the technology evolves.
There are entire diplomatic academies devoted to producing sentences like that.
Translated into ordinary human language, it reads approximately:
**Fine. Call it whatever you want.**
And why should Beijing particularly care?
China already has terminology for the technology. The rest of the world already has terminology for the technology. Researchers, companies, universities, regulators and engineers already have terminology for the technology.
Nobody was sitting around waiting for somebody to rescue Artificial Intelligence from the terrible burden of having a name that explained what it was.
The White House nevertheless recorded the new expression as part of the summit outcome.
So international diplomacy has now reached a fascinating stage.
One government changes a perfectly functional term.
Another government politely says it respects the first government’s choice of words.
The press release calls this agreement.
And reality continues doing exactly what it was doing the day before.
This is increasingly how political branding works.
Take something that already exists.
Give it a larger adjective.
Put capital letters on it.
Announce it from a podium.
Issue a fact sheet.
And suddenly the label itself becomes the achievement.
The technology does not change.
Only the plaque on the door does.
Artificial Intelligence was already one of the most consequential technologies of the century.
Calling it **Super Intelligence** does not make a language model smarter.
It does not improve robotics.
It does not increase computing power.
It does not solve hallucinations.
It does not create new algorithms.
It does not make autonomous agents safer.
It changes two words.
That is all.
Artificial Intelligence told us what the product was.
**Super Intelligence tells us what somebody thinks should be written on the box.**
And now that **Artificial Intelligence** has officially vacated the abbreviation **AI**, the initials are finally available for another purpose.
Given Washington’s continuing enthusiasm for replacing useful terminology with political branding, perhaps the White House may wish to consider:
# **Absent Intelligence**
After several administrations’ worth of rebranding exercises, the acronym practically writes itself.