# Executive Order 14434 **Title:** Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence Signed **September 29, 2026**; published in the Federal Register **October 2, 2026** (91 FR 63129). The order directs every executive department and agency to stop using the words "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in non-statutory contexts and to write "Super Intelligence" and "SI" instead. It does not change any statute, regulation, funding stream, or safety requirement. ## What the order actually does **Section 2 — the substitution.** "To the maximum extent permitted by law, executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall use 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents." **Section 3 — the definition is borrowed, not written.** The order defines Super Intelligence as exactly the technologies already covered by the statutory definition of artificial intelligence at 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3). Nothing in the referent changes; only the label does. **The 60-day clock.** "Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST), in consultation with the heads of other agencies as the APST deems appropriate, shall submit to the President proposed legislative language to establish a Federal definition of 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI.'" That post is held by [[Michael Kratsios]], who also directs the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]]. The deadline falls at the end of November 2026. **What is carved out.** Previously issued regulations, contracts, and documents need not be altered, and statutory usage is untouched — Congress wrote "artificial intelligence" into law, and an executive order cannot unwrite it. This is why Section 3 borrows the existing statutory definition and why the 60-day deliverable is *proposed legislative language*: the order can only reach the parts of the government that speak, not the parts that bind. ## The stated rationale The White House fact sheet frames it as accuracy: "The name Super Intelligence conveys the true capabilities of the technologies being developed today, unlocking new forms of human creativity and empowering Americans to achieve what was previously impossible." [[Donald Trump]]'s own explanation was blunter — that "artificial" is the wrong word because the technology is not artificial, and that "the word super is the best word of all." ## Why it belongs in the KB The order is a clean specimen of **language control as policy instrument**: an action that alters no capability, appropriates no money, and imposes no obligation on anyone outside the executive branch, while requiring the entire federal government to adopt the president's preferred vocabulary. The mechanism is the same one visible in the renaming instruments catalogued elsewhere in the vault — the state's descriptive power used where its regulatory power is absent or unexercised. The second-order effect is the one to watch. The 60-day deliverable asks for **statutory** language, which would convert a vocabulary preference into a definition with legal consequences. A federal definition of "Super Intelligence" is not a synonym swap; whatever it covers is what future AI statutes reach. ## Reception Senator [[Mark Warner]] (D-VA) criticized the order on the ground that "changing what we call artificial intelligence does nothing to address the very real risks" of increasingly powerful systems — the objection being that the administration spent an executive action on nomenclature while declining to spend one on safety. NVIDIA chief executive [[Jensen Huang]] adopted the terminology immediately, describing facilities as "super intelligence factories." The split is characteristic: the industry treats the rebrand as free marketing, and the oversight objection is that it is free precisely because it costs the administration nothing. > [!warning] Sourcing note > Heather Cox Richardson's letter of October 1, 2026 reports Trump telling *Time* that "he will change the name of artificial intelligence to 'super intelligence'" — in the future tense, among a list of claims presented as evidence of unreality. He had already signed the order two days before the letter and one day after the interview. The underlying claim is accurate and the instrument is real; only the tense is wrong. Verified against the Federal Register rather than the letter. ## Date note Forbes and several outlets date the signing to **September 30, 2026**, which is the day the White House announced it. The Federal Register and the White House fact sheet both give **September 29, 2026** as the signing date; the Federal Register controls. ## See also - [[Artificial Intelligence]] - [[Superintelligence]] - [[AI Action Plan]] - [[Michael Kratsios]] - [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] - [[Donald Trump]]