Amid many thorny issues with China, Trump pushes to rename AI as superintelligence
US President Donald Trump is pushing for a rebrand of artificial intelligence (AI) — and looking to get the world’s other AI superpower, China, on board. All US government documents, and “hopefully the world’s”, will use the term “superintelligence”, or SI, to refer to the fast-evolving technology, Trump said at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. The same day, the US State Department…
President Donald Trump is advocating for a shift in terminology from "artificial intelligence" to "superintelligence" for the rapidly advancing technology. At the United Nations General Assembly, Trump announced US government documents and international communications should refer to the tech as "superintelligence" or SI. The following day, the State Department directed US diplomats to adopt the new term.
The move coincided with Trump's high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, placing the linguistic change at the forefront of US-China relations amid discussions on AI risks. In a UN speech, Trump suggested "artificial" in AI makes it "sound fake." However, China's own summary of the summit did not use the new term, instead referring to an AI dialogue.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson stated Beijing respects the US choice of the term but had not confirmed adopting SI. Experts like Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton have warned that SI could pose unprecedented risks, but Trump dismissed calls to regulate AI development as a "hoax." While the rebranding may be driven by public opposition to AI infrastructure and concerns over the tech's risks, Trump's motivations remain unclear.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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