The internet was boiling again last week, over a new approach towards AI: from now on, we’re not calling it Artificial Intelligence anymore. It will be SI, “Super Intelligence”.

Seen from a distance, this looks like yet another internet shallow conversation. But I think it’s worth staying with it for a while, so I made a short video to explain why. Watch it below if you’re the visual type:

If not, keep reading for a short description.

I think there are 3 reasons this is important.

Machines, Politics and Competition

First, it’s an evolution from the “machine” to a broader understanding of the “intelligence” term. We started with “machine learning”, we evolved to “artificial intelligence” and now we are trying to move to “super intelligence”, which drops the “machine” layer completely. I don’t quite agree with this. Intelligence, as we know it, is still human-generated and empowering some files on our computers with this feature will just make it easier to anthropomorphize them. Which is obviously weird and dangerous.

Second, this looks like a political bow to the higher ups. President Trump held a poll on his Twitter account, asking what should be the name used going forward, and “Super Intelligence” won. Still unclear why we cannot just keep using “Artificial Intelligence”. Anyway, AI overlords (or should we call them SI overlords going forward?) caved in, so Elon Musk announced he will change SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI. As a political move, agreeing openly with the president can grant you some benefits. But it looks weird.

And third, if the term really catches up, the one that names a category usually gets a bit of a head start. Elon Musk has a long standing beef with Open AI, which he founded, by the way, so obsoleting the “AI” in the name will put Sam Altman at a slight disadvantage.

All in all, we’re looking at an interesting marketing move. One that looks shallow, but could shape the names we’ll be using in the next 2-3 years.

If you have any comments about this, please do so under the video, I read them all. And if you like this kind of content, like, share and subscribe!