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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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I use both terms interchangeably and in fact “Superintelligence” expresses my argument in that sentence better than “Artificial intelligence”. “Superintelligence can be used to solve, by definition, almost any problem.” “Artificial Intelligence” does not carry the same semantic meaning here.

I generally prefer “Superintelligence” to “Artificial Intelligence” but “AI” to “SI”. I use it because it is genuinely a better term to describe what we are talking about in most applications. (Which, for what it’s worth, is also why Trump picked it.)

No, it isn't. Superintelligence does not exist yet.

I am speaking in the hypothetical. Yet-to-be-built compute will be used because demand for Superintelligence approaches infinity.

If Trump were talking about a hypothetical future when SI exists, I would shrug and think he's being optimistic and grandiose, as usual, but he literally issued an Execute Order requiring the federal government to call existing AI "SI." You calling it "superintelligence" just reads like you using Dear Leader's newly-minted buzzword. I mean, I don't recall you ever using that phrase until five minutes after Trump's EO.

Yeah, Trump started using “Superintelligence” and I thought “that is better in certain contexts”. Such as the one in which I used it. You yourself were arguing that SI has a distinct meaning from AI — would you not use SI at all now even when it’s the better term?

I would use SI when talking about something that actually qualifies as superintelligence (generally speaking, the hypothetical future point at which AI has surpassed AGI and become literally superintelligent). No existing AI comes remotely close to that. A list of all the things AI can or will be able to do does not make it "superintelligence," because the key word there is "intelligence." We don't consider calculators superintelligent because they can do math thousands of times faster than a human; artificial neural networks obviously can do much more than calculate, but they still are nowhere near that quantum leap into superintelligence.

If you want to make a new definition for superintelligence that is different from what the industry and the AI field uses, okay, go you. But I'm absolutely going to continue to think it's retarded to call ChatGPT and Gemini and Opus "superintelligence," which Trump's Executive Order literally requires the federal government to do.

You clearly aren’t reading what I’m writing because I have to repeat the exact point I just made: I am using the word “superintelligence” in exactly the sense you describe. I said that all the compute being built would be used because the possible uses of superintelligence are infinite.

I am reading what you're writing. You're referring to hypothetical technologies that don't actually exist yet and saying when they exist we should call them superintelligence. Okay, cool. But I am talking about applying that label now to existing technology. You, by your own admission, started using the term the moment Trump did. I don't think you understand the terms or the tech any better than Trump does.

All the compute being built will be used - yes, no duh. But that won't make it superintelligence. Using it for more and more things won't make it superintelligence. Calling what we build now "superintelligence" because it will be used for "infinite" things is just PR for AI companies, which once again, I wouldn't care about much beyond an eyeroll if the PR wasn't being enforced with an Orwellian Executive Order.

I'm not sure if you honestly don't get this, or... Well, I have already been absurdly accused of "TDS", but what do you call someone who will immediately say the sun is the moon if Trump declares it so?

“Superintelligence” is a more useful term in several contexts than “AI” was. If every time now you hear the term “Superintelligence” you freak out about Trump, that is actually the definition of TDS.

You're referring to hypothetical technologies that don't actually exist yet and saying when they exist we should call them superintelligence.

Try again.

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