“Superintelligence” assumes human and machine intelligence sit on the same cognitive scale.

AI may represent a fundamentally different architecture, where performance does not equal wisdom or authority.

Calling AI “super” may reshape our relationship with it, encouraging deference and cognitive surrender.

President Donald Trump, by executive order, has changed the language used by the federal government from “Artificial Intelligence” to “Super Intelligence.” On the surface, this may seem like just a change in terminology. But I believe that the word “super” carries with it an assumption that may be more consequential than just a name change.

A few months ago, I wrote a post titled “We’re Measuring AI on the Wrong Ruler.” My argument was rather simple. When we suggest that AI is smarter than humans, we have already made an assumption that human cognition and machine intelligence can be measured on the same line. In this context, we begin to imagine intelligence itself on a single continuum, a bit........

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