U.S. President Trump recently signed an executive order stating: "The term 'superintelligence' more accurately reflects the prospects, potential, and rapidly evolving capabilities of these technologies. Therefore, it is the policy of this administration to adopt the terms 'superintelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI' to the maximum extent permitted by law, and to disapprove of the use of 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI' in all applicable contexts."
This whole affair is utterly absurd, no different from the outrageous previous attempts to rename the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, and even New Mexico—as for how this will ultimately play out, we'll just have to wait and see. There's also an interesting coincidence: the term "superintelligence" happens to share a name with "Super Earth," the fascist home planet of humanity in Helldivers 2. But that's probably just a coincidence.
And this matter was indeed treated seriously—at least judging by the reactions of tech billionaires: they lined up to echo support, their actions clearly aimed at continuing to drive up stock prices, with "compliance" written all over their faces. Subsequently, a group of industry leaders, who have pushed PC game prices to exorbitant heights, jointly signed the "White House Superintelligence Agreement":
Sundar Pichai (Google)
Dario Amodei (Anthropic)
Mark Zuckerberg (Meta)
Greg Brockman (OpenAI)
Elon Musk (xAI)
Jensen Huang (NVIDIA)
By the way, beneath Trump's signature, they actually misspelled "United States" as "Unites States." Indeed, the world is just one big makeshift stage.
Musk immediately publicly supported the renaming on his X platform, but less than eight hours later, he reverted to calling it AI.
Jensen Huang also weighed in, mentioning the term "superintelligence" at least three times in his posts on X.
Pichai had already swiftly complied with Trump's request, changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario for U.S. users on Google Maps. This time, while lavishly praising high-ranking government officials, he also kept "superintelligence" on his lips.
Zuckerberg naturally didn't miss out either, though he voiced his opinion on his Facebook platform: "We believe that superintelligence will create vast new opportunities for all individuals and businesses."
Setting aside these antics, the act of renaming artificial intelligence itself has little practical impact: virtually no one online will actually use this terminology.
But what deserves greater vigilance is the profound implication behind this event: these tech billionaires obediently lined up to express support, adding another stroke to the president's world-altering "political legacy," followed immediately by the signing of this agreement. At its core, the agreement calls for self-regulation within the AI industry—described by Trump as "unprecedented self-regulation."
The agreement states: "To build a positive future for the American people and the world, we believe every company has a responsibility to develop its technology safely to establish trust with customers and the public." It further notes: "Participating companies will meet regularly to establish standards and best practices to enhance the safety of their systems." The entire document makes no mention of regulatory oversight or any form of government intervention.
At least one prominent tech billionaire has publicly opposed the idea of self-regulation in the AI industry, though it is worth noting that he is no longer constrained by shareholders.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated in an interview with The New York Times: "Frankly, people outside the industry have an extremely low perception of the risks associated with artificial intelligence. This applies to academia, think tanks, policymakers, and politicians alike."
"The reason I am speaking out so loudly—doing my best to raise my voice—is partly because you cannot expect this industry to regulate itself. Honestly, it's simply absurd."
So, looking at the bigger picture, this matter isn't really that funny after all. But it is certainly quite "super."