Trump floats renaming artificial intelligence and pledges to build an AI Force

Trump floats a rename for artificial intelligence

President Donald Trump used a pair of Truth Social posts on Saturday to propose a new name for AI, dismiss criticism of the technology as a political fabrication, and announce that he is forming an "AI Force," according to TechCrunch.

The president opened by claiming that many people consider the term "Artificial Intelligence" inaccurate and awkward, then posted a poll asking followers to choose among three alternatives: Superior Intelligence, Extreme Intelligence, or Supreme Intelligence. TechCrunch reported the poll was still running at publication time.

Safety concerns framed as a hoax

Hours later, Trump posted again, describing attempts to decimate or destroy AI as the latest in a series of hoaxes he attributes to Democrats. In his telling, the campaign began with attacks on data centers, which he said largely failed once communities recognized the wealth and prestige the facilities brought, before critics turned their attention to AI itself.

TechCrunch points out that the president offered no evidence that suspicion of AI and data centers is anything but genuine, and notes that politicians from both parties have targeted data centers, with New York recently becoming the first state to halt permits for large projects.

The posts echo remarks Trump made at a golf tournament the previous weekend, when he said he was open to guardrails but argued that "negative forces" were raising the subject unnecessarily.

An AI Force and a coming czar

Trump wrote that he intends to help and watch over the AI industry as it grows, and said he is creating an AI Force modeled on the Space Force he established during his first term. He added that he will soon announce an AI "czar," quipping that only "High I.Q. individuals" need apply.

Neither post spelled out what the AI Force or the czar would actually do, TechCrunch reports. The role has precedent: venture capitalist David Sacks served as AI and crypto czar before stepping down earlier this year to co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

The backdrop: a flare-up in the safety debate

The comments arrive as the argument over AI risk has sharpened. According to TechCrunch, an AI researcher recently resigned from Anthropic, saying leading labs sincerely believe the technology could kill everyone by the end of the decade and are gambling with the public's lives. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded with a plan to "pace the frontier," which appeared to draw support from OpenAI's Sam Altman and SpaceX's Elon Musk, while industry critics argue that existential talk overshadows concrete present-day harms.

Support for the president's framing also came from industry. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang phoned Trump on stage at the All-In Summit, which Sacks co-hosts, agreed that the AI backlash is a hoax, and said a slowdown is not going to be allowed to happen.

Why it matters

However loosely sketched, the posts are a signal about the direction of US AI policy. An administration that treats safety concerns as partisan theater is unlikely to champion binding oversight, which matters for labs racing to build frontier systems and for the communities and power grids absorbing data center growth. An AI Force, if it follows the Space Force model, would create a new institutional stakeholder with its own budget and procurement interests, and the eventual czar pick will show who actually steers federal AI policy after Sacks. For researchers and officials, including Republicans raising substantive concerns, the message is that their arguments risk being read as bad faith rather than as policy input.