A Guide to Which AI CEOs Now Say ‘Super Intelligence’ and Which Don’t

Artificial intelligence or AI started out in the 1950s as an observation about the potential capabilities of computer systems. It evolved into an area of inquiry within computer science. Eventually, when some of the technologies most associated with AI began to have commercial applications, it became generally understood that AI mostly refers to neural networks, deep learning, LLMs and the revenue-generating applications—notably chatbots, image generators, and coding applications—derived from and associated with those. Superintelligence is a completely different—in many cases utterly unrelated—concept: a hypothetical form of intelligence superior to humanity’s. In its earliest uses, from the 19th century, the meaning was something like “God’s will” or more generally some unknowable force controlling the universe. Artificial superintelligence has been a concept in science fiction for decades, but a 2014 book by Nick Bostrom called Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies brought the two concepts together in a semi-serious way, and became a staple of AI culture in Silicon Valley during the lead-up to the post-ChatGPT investment feeding frenzy that led to our current all-AI-all-the-time discursive environment. But a month ago, no one doing serious work in AI would have said the two concepts were one and the same, or even close. However, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, decided last month that he didn’t want to call artificial intelligence “artificial intelligence” anymore, and that he wanted to use his own alternative phrase instead: “Super Intelligence,” which is two words in title case. He has since said anyone who still says “artificial intelligence” is “THE ENEMY.” There’s simply no getting around the fact that the highly unpopular and rapidly aging president’s bizarre insistence on muddling these terms stems from confusion, along with the kind of perversity Trump seems to increasingly relish. His belligerence about the term “Super Intelligence”—while frightening given the power of his office—could rightly be taken as conclusive evidence that he’s unfit to play any sort of leadership role in tech. Nonetheless, many of the luminaries in the AI business are going right along with the president’s whim when it comes to “Super Intelligence”—often with gusto—rather than speaking up about his obvious deficiencies as a leader in what is theoretically their area of expertise. Here’s a quick guide to how deeply our tech overlords have sunk themselves into the putrid muck of Donald Trump’s decaying brain. This is what our research has revealed so far, but sound off in the comments if you’ve seen one of these guys (they’re all guys) using the phrase—or for that matter if you see someone stop using it. ❌ Altman, Sam © Heather Diehl / Stringer via Getty Images Altman, the CEO of OpenAI did not attend the September 29 White House meeting, at which several leaders signed a document that Trump later revealed meant that the attendees had acknowledged they would use the term “Super Intelligence.” He has not publicly used the phrase at all, according to our research, and has posted the term “AI” on X as recently as October 6. Notably, fully embracing the term Super Intelligence would involve renaming his company. ❓ Amodei, Dario © Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has been quiet since an interview published just before the September 29 White House event. However, he did attend the event, and did sign the document that seems to have led to AI leaders starting to use the term. Amodei also reportedly dined alone with President Trump shortly before the White House meeting. ✅ Bezos, Jeff © Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images Bezos is the CEO of an AI company called Project Prometheus, but he’s no longer CEO of Amazon, and did not attend the September 29 White House event. He has, however, embraced the term, telling a Fox News interviewer, “I do like SI, because ‘artificial’ is not a very flattering thing. Like, nobody wants an artificial sweetener, artificial flavoring.” ✅ Benioff, Marc © Jemal Countess / Getty Images Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, was not at the September 29 meeting. He has, however, completely embraced the term. “The era of Super Intelligence is here. AIForce is officially SIForce,” he wrote on X. “SIForce” here does not refer to Donald Trump’s Super Intelligence Force (SIF), but to a SalesForce product with essentially the same name. ✅ Huang, Jensen © Philip Fong / Getty Images In an interview alongside Elon Musk just after the September 29 White House event, Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, used the term Super Intelligence. He later wrote a long post on X that made use of the term several times. ❌ Jassy, Andy © Noah Berger / Getty Images for Amazon Web Services It’s easy to forget Jassy is the CEO of Amazon. The day after the White House meeting, which he did not attend, he posted “AI” on X, saying “As folks build AI agents into their apps, the data their agent needs will depend on the task in front of it.” ✅ Musk, Elon © Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images Musk has been the term’s most enthusiastic cheerleader outside of Donald Trump himself. He says he will change the name of SpaceX’s AI division from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, and actually has changed the name of its X account. He has also amplified at least one message from a fan embracing the SI rebrand. ✅ Nadella, Satya © FABRICE COFFRINI / Getty Images It appears Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was at the White House on September 29, but did not sign the document the meeting produced. He has, however, embraced the term, writing a long post on X called “Models as Insider Risks in the Super Intelligence Era.” The post refers to safety tech that “eludes us in today’s Super Intelligence systems, even as the frontier models powering these systems are now more capable than traditional software systems,” making it clear that he’s not referring to hypothetical “superintelligence” in the future, but to artificial intelligence generally. ❓Pichai, Sundar © KARL MONDON / Getty Images The CEO of Alphabet/Google did sign the White House document. He also posted the term on X, but the post was somewhat rote, including the phrase, “Important conversation and we signed today the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.” He has since posted a video on X in which an employee uses the term “AI.” ❓Zuckerberg, Mark © Finn Gomez / Getty Images As a Meta spokesperson pointed out to me shortly after the White House meeting, Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, has long been a fan of the phrase superintelligence. But historically, he does so aspirationally. He has stepped up his use of “superintelligence” recently. He also reportedly took a lead role in writing the White House document, and signed it. But while he has posted approvingly when other tech leaders use the two-word term “Super Intelligence,” so far, we haven’t seen him use it in the ways Trump has prescribed: as two words, and as a term for artificial intelligence generally.