In August 1955, computer and cognitive scientist John McCarthy of Dartmouth College and mathematician Marvin Minsky of Harvard University joined industry members Nathaniel Rochester of IBM and Claude Shannon of Bell Telephone Laboratories to submit a proposal for the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on the subject of "artificial intelligence."
Their workshop took place in July and August 1956 and is widely recognized as the official birth of AI as an academic, technical, and scientific discipline. The terms "artificial intelligence" and the acronym "AI," which have gained international recognition and usage since then, were attributed to McCarthy, who chose the phrase to distinguish it as a new field separate from the work of cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener.
But if MAGA Republican President Donald Trump has his way, 70 years after that first AI conference, the term will be retired and replaced with another name. Similar to the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, Trump plans to rebrand AI as SI: super intelligence.
During a rambling speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Tuesday, Trump stated:
"The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence, being spoken of so much now."
The term "globalist" is an antisemitic, conspiratorial white supremacist dog whistle. Its use dates back to late 19th-century nationalist movements and was deeply embedded in the core ideology of Nazism in the 1920s and 1930s.
Trump continued:
"Hereinafter officially called 'Super Intelligence,' changing the name, and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports."
"From this point forward, all of United States' documents, and hopefully the world's, will be changed to use the much more accurate term 'super,' as opposed to 'artificial.' So it’s 'Super Intelligence.'"
"In other words, welcome to the new world of 'Super intelligence'— SI. Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better and it’s much more accurate. Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t. We’re going to find out pretty soon."
You can watch his remarks here:
Trump had griped about the term artificial intelligence before. At a 2025 AI summit, Trump told the gathered industry players he doesn't "like the name 'artificial' anything."
On Saturday, Trump initiated a poll on his Truth Social platform, asking his followers to choose between the terms superior, extreme, and supreme.
The POTUS claimed:
"Many people think that the words 'Artificial Intelligence' are inaccurate, and very ineloquent, relative to AI, or Artificial Intelligence. A far more elegant and accurate description of this new phenomena would be Superior Intelligence (SI) or, Extreme Intelligence (EI) or, Supreme Intelligence (SI). This is a Poll, and I would appreciate everybody voting! Which is the best name for this ever growing 'Revolution?'"
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
Despite his MAGA minions picking superior intelligence without a glimmer of self-awareness, Trump announced super intelligence would be the new name.
Outside the MAGAsphere, people mocked Trump's latest name change.
@georgejcip/X
@NewsCorpse/X
Tech and policy experts noted that a leader of a country cannot legally or unilaterally rename widely-adopted global tech terms. Especially if it's strictly for their own self interests.
And the term "superintelligence" is already being used by computer scientists to describe technology reaching a hypothetical independent machine intelligence that would far exceed human capabilities.
Trump's rebrand would create confusion in scientific research discussions of the technology's future.
@joehas/X