US President Donald Trump, on Saturday, posted a poll on social media platform Truth Social asking users to choose a possible new name for "artificial intelligence"(AI). The proposal came amid a broader debate over AI regulation, safety and the pace at which increasingly powerful AI systems are being developed.
In his post, Trump argued that the words "artificial intelligence" were "inaccurate, and very ineloquent" and suggested that one of the three alternatives would be a "far more elegant and accurate" description of the technology. The three names he suggested were, Superior Intelligence (SI), Extreme Intelligence (EI), and Supreme Intelligence (SI). He asked his followers to vote on "which is the best name for this ever growing "Revolution?"
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According to Forbes, almost 30,000 people had voted within roughly an hour of the poll being posted. "Superior Intelligence" was leading with 42% of the vote at around 1 pm ET on Saturday. The renaming proposal came during an increasingly intense debate over AI safety and the rapid expansion of AI development.
Forbes reported that Trump has opposed recent calls to slow down the development of frontier AI models. The debate intensified after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the pace of frontier AI development to be deliberately slowed down so lawmakers and regulators could catch up.
Trump has instead aligned himself with people including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and White House PCAST co-chair David Sacks in arguing against a mandatory slowdown of US AI development.
Trump had dismissed concerns about AI becoming dangerous, describing such warnings as a "hoax." He also argued that AI does not require additional regulatory "guardrails" beyond strong presidential leadership. He asserted that the US already has substantial criminal and regulatory powers over AI companies.
At the same time, AI executives and researchers have raised concerns about the safety implications of increasingly capable AI systems. Forbes reported that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk have all expressed concerns in different ways about AI advancing faster than humans' ability to adequately test, align and control such systems.
The naming proposal also comes alongside Trump's broader push to expand the US artificial intelligence industry. Reuters reported on Saturday that Trump announced plans to appoint a new AI adviser, or "AI czar" and establish an "AI force", although he did not provide details about their structure and implementation.
Trump said that his administration would not stifle or hinder the growth of the AI industry and would instead support and monitor its expansion while relying on existing criminal and civil justice systems to deal with any wrongdoing.
Trump's announcement preceded his scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with AI viewed by both Washington and Beijing as strategically important to their economic and military capabilities, Reuters reported.
Trump has described AI as “the greatest economic development engine in history” and has repeatedly highlighted the technology's role in US economic growth and competition with China.
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