President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to ban the term “artificial intelligence” after lashing out at The Wall Street Journal in a Truth Social post.
Trump posted to his social media platform complaining that the the news organization had yet to adopt his preferred term, “super intelligence:”
When will The Wall Street Journal start calling Artificial Intelligence (AI), a very bad and inaccurate name, SI (Super Intelligence), the name which virtually everyone else is using, or soon will be. In short order, we will be officially BANNING the term, “AI/Artificial Intelligence,” in all relevant documents, and everything else, due to its inaccuracy. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
When asked how the government could ban a term given the Constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, the White House Press Office replied, “refer to the TRUTH.”
It’s unclear what banning the term “artificial intelligence” “in all relevant documents, and everything else” specifically means.
Trump began touting the phrase “super intelligence” in a poll last month on Truth Social, then proclaimed Chinese leader Xi Jingping liked the term as well.
The president ran three different polls with new names for AI: Super Intelligence, Extreme Intelligence, and Supreme Intelligence.
By early October he also claimed anyone still using the term artificial intelligence was “the enemy,” even though the White House itself had been slow to make the change.
“The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, ‘Super Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!” Trump had written on Truth Social.
At least one artificial intelligence expert ripped Trump for trying to use the term super intelligence.
“He’s taken a technical term which has a very clear meaning and then reused it,” said University of Toronto Professor Geoffrey Hinton. “Superintelligence means smarter than people, and has been around for at least 20 years. It’s got a very clear meaning. And now he says we’re going to call AI ‘superintelligence’. You can’t make it smarter than people just by calling it smarter than people.”
Kathianne Boniello, Mediaite
