Full Breakdown
Trump Rebrands “Artificial Intelligence” as “Super Intelligence” at the UN
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event
On September 22, 2026, President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly and announced that the United States will refer to artificial intelligence (AI) as “super intelligence” (SI) in all official documents. He said the word “artificial” makes the technology sound “fake” and that “super” is a more accurate descriptor.
Background & Context
Trump had previously criticized the term “artificial intelligence” on his Truth Social platform, polling followers on alternative names such as “super,” “extreme,” and “supreme” intelligence. The “super intelligence” option won the poll, and the president framed the change as a linguistic correction rather than a policy shift.
Following the speech, the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs circulated an internal email (dated September 22) from Deputy Assistant Secretary Michael Drager ordering diplomats to replace every instance of “Artificial Intelligence” with “Super Intelligence” and to use the abbreviation “SI” in all remarks, positions, and press materials.
Official Statements & Responses
- State Department directive: Drager’s email instructed staff to change all references in documents and positions, stating that the new terminology would be used “moving forward.”
- Diplomatic usage: U.S. representatives employed the SI term during a Security Council meeting on AI later that day, signaling compliance with the president’s directive.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
- The State Department email confirmed the nomenclature change for the International Organizations bureau, but it was not clear whether other federal agencies have issued similar orders.
- No official implementation timeline has been released, leaving the process for updating contracts, regulations, and international agreements undefined.
Verbatim Quotes
- “The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing,” — Donald Trump, communications following president
- “From this point forward, all of United States' documents, and hopefully the world's, will be changed to use the more accurate term 'super' as opposed to 'artificial'. So it's 'super intelligence',” — Donald Trump, communications following president
- “We're leading now over China by a lot, and everyone else, and we're going to keep it that way,” — Donald Trump, communications following president
- “The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence.” — Donald Trump, communications following president
- “Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” — Donald Trump, communications following president
What’s Next
President Trump is slated to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington later this week, with AI expected to be a central topic of discussion between the two superpowers.