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Trump Rebrands AI as Super Intelligence Rejects Regulation

13 sources · updated 2026-09-23
Left 50% Center 17% Right 33%
3 left · 1 center · 2 right

What happened

On September 22, 2026, President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that the United States would rename artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” or SI, in official U.S. documents, saying “the use of the word artificial makes intelligence sound fake” and that the technology “is not fake. It’s actually amazing.” In the same address he said the United States “totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” the field, that America is “leading now over China” and will keep that lead, and that he would “only encourage” superintelligence rather than “stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet itself.” He added that the Department of Justice and other law-enforcement bodies “will rein things in if we have to.” The previous day, on Truth Social, Trump had written that AI-safety concerns were a “hoax,” that “Whoever wins AI, WINS!,” and that the United States already has “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies.”
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 6 articles

3 of 5 articles cite a named source for the story. It started with unnamed sources; a named source appeared within the hour.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 3 of 5
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Donald Trump and President Donald Trump
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 5
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
Credits another outlet 0 of 5
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 5
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 22, 16:14 UTC by Fox Business, with no named source. First named source within the hour, from Washington Post.
Not counted 1
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Right-leaning coverage of the United Nations speech skips the safety scare that left-leaning coverage treats as the reason the remarks are news. After a departing Anthropic researcher warned that labs were gambling with lives, left-leaning coverage recorded Trump branding the safety debate a "hoax." Left-leaning pieces also note that frontier-lab chief executives had already asked for a slowdown and extra federal oversight. Right-leaning UN accounts move from the rename straight to beating China and rejecting international control, without that warning or that word. Left-leaning coverage led on the name change itself. Right-leaning coverage led on rejecting a "globalist scheme" to control the technology. Has the White House issued any directive that would actually change the term in statutes, regulations, or agency filings?
Bottom line

Read only the right-leaning UN stories and you miss Trump calling AI-safety fears a "hoax"; read only the left-leaning ones and the news looks like a rename, not a rejection of international rules.

The receipts — 2 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Trump said the Justice Department has already been used very powerfully on this subject and everything worked out very well and very quickly official statementin New York Post · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • The name artificial intelligence is not a legally designated term that can be changed by the president contextin Business Insider · absent from right-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets treated the UN rebrand as a dismissive gesture amid “growing anxiety” about the technology (The Washington Post) and as a “notable declaration” given spreading warnings of “potential catastrophic consequences” (NBC News). They set Trump’s “hoax” language—likened on Truth Social to “RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA” and climate change—against former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon’s resignation warning that labs are “gambling with our lives,” and against slowdown-and-oversight appeals from Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis. CNBC and Business Insider stressed a White House “light approach,” including a June executive order that asked firms to volunteer evaluations of “covered frontier models,” and same-day comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that labs would not get liability protection and “need to take responsibility for themselves.” Business Insider noted that “artificial intelligence” is not a legally designated term a president can rename; The Verge placed the SI line in a speech that also “railed against Iran, ‘globalists,’ and transgender people.”
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets framed the address as a “red line” against international control of a decisive technology (New York Post) and a pledge that Americans “have never been a nation that retreats from a frontier” (Fox Business). They highlighted Trump’s line that “whoever wins superintelligence wins,” that the United States is “leading now over China by a lot,” and that Washington will “encourage it, not rein it in” while watching it “closely through the Department of Justice.” Breitbart reported he hoped “the world’s” documents would adopt the new term, noted an earlier Truth Social poll offering names such as “Superior Intelligence” and “Supreme Intelligence,” and cited investor David Sacks’s view that when AI CEOs call for a slowdown they aim to “capture the industry and exclude themselves from antitrust laws.” Fox Business also tied the remarks to an impending meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that a presidential rename does not answer the safety case its sources put on the table: Coxon’s “gambling with our lives” warning, multiple frontier-lab CEOs asking to pace development, and Trump’s “hoax” language plus a merely contingent DOJ role after a voluntary June review. The right’s strongest argument is that “whoever wins superintelligence wins” treats international control as the real strategic risk, backed by the lead-over-China claim, the “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power” assertion, and Sacks’s charge that slowdown advocacy can function as a competitive moat. The central unresolved tension is whether U.S. advantage is secured by encouraging the technology under existing enforcement while rejecting global rules, or whether that posture leaves the “if we have to” backstop untested against the catastrophic-risk warnings those same industry leaders have issued.

13 sources

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