25 September 2026 | By the Supra Vista Team
What happens if you give a technology a more powerful name?
Speaking at the United Nations on 22 September, Donald Trump said the United States should call artificial intelligence “super intelligence”, or SI, in government documents. He argued that artificial makes the technology sound fake.
But there is a catch: “superintelligence” already means something in AI.
Today’s AI is powerful. Is it superintelligent?
AI can help write code, analyse documents, generate images and answer questions. Those abilities can be impressive, but they do not mean a system can outperform people across almost every field.
In AI discussions, superintelligence generally describes a hypothetical system with abilities beyond human intelligence across a broad range of tasks. Calling today’s AI “SI” could blur that distinction.
Why does the name matter?
Trump also framed AI as a competition. After saying “whoever wins AI”, he switched to “whoever wins SI, whoever wins super intelligence, wins”, and said the United States was ahead of China.
The new label cannot improve an AI system’s abilities. It can, however, change what people think they are hearing about. “Artificial intelligence” names a broad field of technology. “Superintelligence” suggests a much more powerful system—and may make the race to develop it feel more urgent.
That is a useful distinction for families reading AI headlines: ask what a system can actually do, rather than judging it by its name.
Explore how Supra Vista helps families understand and use AI responsibly.