US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said his administration would refer to artificial intelligence as “super intelligence” in official communications, as world leaders debated how to manage the risks posed by rapidly advancing AI technology.
AI has emerged as a major issue at the United Nations General Assembly, amid growing concerns about the technology operating beyond human control, warnings from industry insiders and calls for stronger government oversight of the sector.
Addressing the assembly, Trump reiterated his opposition to regulating AI, arguing that the term “artificial” fails to adequately describe the technology and expressing hope that other countries would adopt his preferred terminology.
“Super Intelligence sounds much better” and “it’s much more accurate,” Trump said.
The proposed rebranding follows other renaming initiatives pursued by the Trump administration. Last year, Trump issued an executive order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” In August, he also referred to Lake Ontario as “Lake America” amid tensions with Canada over trade.
Trump also dismissed concerns raised by AI safety advocates, comparing them to warnings about climate change.
“The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control… artificial intelligence,” he said.
“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” Trump added.
He also criticised what he described as alarmist predictions about the dangers of AI.
“The very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming… are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster,” he said.
Calls for global AI rules
Ahead of the UN General Assembly, leaders from more than 20 mainly European countries called for binding safety measures for advanced AI, warning that technological development could outpace governments’ ability to manage its risks.
The United States and China, the world’s two leading AI powers, did not endorse the proposal.
Speaking on the sidelines of the UN gathering, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he planned to use Britain’s role as host of the Group of 20 next year to promote a “single set of global principles and standards” for AI, according to Bloomberg.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, called for the development of AI systems that are independent of the world’s major powers.
“I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers,” Macron told the UN General Assembly, in an apparent reference to China and the United States.
“Our investment capabilities must be pooled to build a cutting-edge open-source AI model, which we will share. We should not depend on somebody else,” he said.
UN calls for US-China AI dialogue
Major US-based AI companies are also increasingly calling for greater international coordination on AI safety.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is expected to address the UN Security Council on Wednesday, while Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and Hugging Face co-founder Clement Delangue are also expected to participate remotely, according to a French official.
France, which holds the presidency of the Security Council this month, initiated the meeting, arguing that the potential threat posed by AI to international peace and security has not received sufficient attention at the UN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the United States and China to establish a dialogue on the future of AI, drawing a parallel with communication between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War.
“Governments with the greatest AI capabilities have the greatest responsibilities to humanity, to establish channels for dialogue,” Guterres said in his address to the assembly.
“At a pivotal moment during the Cold War, strategic rivals came to recognize the need to manage shared existential risks.”
The United States and China are currently discussing the creation of a communication channel focused on AI-related concerns, ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.
AFP
