Artificial intelligence has an image problem, and the proposed fix is a name change. Speaking during the general debate of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, former U.S. President Donald Trump said AI — artificial intelligence — should henceforth officially be called SI: Super Intelligence. His reasoning: the word "artificial" makes intelligence sound fake, when in reality it is not.

The remark was brief, but it touched a genuine and long-running debate about what we call the technology that is quietly reordering the world.

Why "Artificial Intelligence" Was Named That Way

The term "artificial intelligence" was coined in 1956 at the Dartmouth workshop, where a group of researchers proposed "that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."

The word "artificial" carried a neutral-to-positive sense at the time: intelligence made by humans, as opposed to grown by nature. But decades later, the adjective has picked up baggage. In everyday speech, "artificial" implies imitation, syntheticness, and second-best — fake flowers, artificial flavors. Trump's complaint is exactly this: the label quietly downgrades the real capabilities of modern systems.

The Problem With the Replacement: What "Super Intelligence" Already Means

There is a catch: in AI research, superintelligence is not a synonym for today's systems. The term was popularized by philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2014 book Superintelligence — "an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field" — and is used to describe hypothetical future systems that exceed humanity across the board, including in scientific creativity and social intelligence.

Calling current large language models and agentic systems "super intelligence" stretches the term considerably. Most researchers would say we are nowhere near that threshold, whatever we call the technology.

This is not the first attempt at rebranding. Over the years, alternatives have been floated: synthetic intelligence (stressing that the systems are constructed rather than "artificial"), applied intelligence, computational intelligence, and more. Each name encodes a different claim about what the systems are and what they will become.

Does Naming Matter?

Yes — more than it might seem. The words used for a technology shape public expectations, funding narratives, and even regulation. "Artificial intelligence" sets off alarm bells about machines imitating people; "super intelligence" sets off different alarms entirely, about machines surpassing people. Neither label is neutral.

But a rename does not change the technology. Whether you call it AI, SI, or something else, the systems keep improving, keep being deployed, and keep raising the same hard questions about reliability, alignment, and control. The debate over the name is, in a sense, a debate over which future we are preparing for — and that part is worth paying attention to.

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[1] All illustrations are AI-generated.

[2] Locally adapted from a public news report on the UN General Assembly remark, 2026-09-23.