Yet another Hacker News

89 points wiradikusuma 5 hours ago 167 comments

Linkd 5 hours ago | parent

You couldn't pay me to call it super intelligence. I'm really curious how the industry will react to this name split.

stusmall 5 hours ago | parent

Kinda feels like the X/Twitter one. When someone uses the new term you learn something about them

reddozen 5 hours ago | parent

Remember there's only one side that says "I don't want to be judged for my vote". And it's because they know they're voting for abhorrent shit.

electriclove 5 hours ago | parent

Do you call it Facebook or Meta?

vjvjvjvjghv 1 hour ago | parent

Facebook. But Meta is slowly creeping in. Renaming a popular term takes years or decades.

undersuit 1 hour ago | parent

Do I call what Facebook or Meta? You are talking about two separate things.

caconym_ 1 hour ago | parent

Not OP but I do still call it Facebook.

ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago | parent

Faecebook

zarzavat 4 hours ago | parent

The term dates from the 90s at least. It's not a new term and I don't think we should stop using it just because the orange one has taken a liking to it.

[0] How Long Before Superintelligence? (1997) https://nickbostrom.com/papers/how-long-before-superintellig...

stusmall 3 hours ago | parent

We said a lot of crazy stuff in the 90s but you won't catch me calling it The Information Superhighway in 2026

skeledrew 3 hours ago | parent

But... what do we call that-which-is-yet-to-emerge if that label gets used up now? Ultra Intelligence?

AnimalMuppet 5 hours ago | parent

Prediction: One or two big companies will use it for reasons of scoring political points with the administration. Everyone else will ignore it and mock those who use it.

As for me: Like it or not, Trump is my president. He's not my dictator, and he's not my technical dictionary. I'll use what terms I like. He doesn't get to tell me which terms to use (the First Amendment is on my side in this one.)

And I consider AI to be both more accurate and more established than SI, so I'll call it AI. And, as I said, I suspect that most people will do the same.

hackingonempty 4 hours ago | parent

We still call it "machine learning"

ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago | parent

"Fuzzy Logic"

Avicebron 5 hours ago | parent

Wouldn't load on mobile after ~20 seconds

artninja1988 5 hours ago | parent

Works on my machine

toonvanvr 5 hours ago | parent

Works on my mobile

hackyhacky 5 hours ago | parent

There are many good reasons for an American to be deeply embarrassed by this administration. The push to normalize the term "Super Intelligence", while not highly consequential, is a deeply silly, juvenile, and therefore embarrassing move, emblematic of the lack of thoughtfulness with which the current government makes decisions. It's also utterly tone-deaf and fails to even pay lip-service to the legitimate concerns that many citizens have about the impact of AI on their lives.

bulbar 2 hours ago | parent

You need an easy way to identify loyalists and language is perfect for this. Just one term won't be enough, though.

josharsh 5 hours ago | parent

what really is intelligence?

verdverm 5 hours ago | parent

an engineered concept

a3w 4 hours ago | parent

An observed concept.

dotancohen 5 hours ago | parent

The ability to process information, draw conclusions, and choose a course of action to achieve a goal.

I'm proud to claim that I wrote that before the idea of "agents" was invented.

a3w 4 hours ago | parent

process information and generate an output is really enough. A calculator is mentioned in Wikipedia as being an AI technology, and we feared students would no longer learn and understand calculus and the people who worked as Computers at companies would lose that job. Only one of both came true, and the math nerds still get a job at different tasks with a different title.

Okay, now no one can add numbers at scale since Excel exists and calculates at the accuracy limits of a counter-top calculator. But in theory, spreadsheets can be intelligent solving tools.

dotancohen 4 hours ago | parent

It's the drawing of conclusions where I see the intelligence. The other two steps are the input and output mechanisms - I deliberately avoided the mention of what sensors would be used or how the actions would be carried out.

A calculator does not draw conclusions. Neither does excel - it just passes variables through a tree of if and while statements - the developer drew the conclusions when he wrote the excel formulae. Same with e.g. a PERL script.

AndrewDucker 2 hours ago | parent

The ability to create models based on observations and then use those models to make predictions.

loveparade 5 hours ago | parent

Before chasing super intelligence maybe fix how bad the average K12 education is for humans compared to the rest of the developed world.

bryanrasmussen 5 hours ago | parent

What?! And raise revolutionaries!? That's crazy talk.

steve1977 4 hours ago | parent

I wish you were kidding.

falcor84 5 hours ago | parent

Why? If SI is going to take over everything, wouldn't a well-informed human population just get in the way? /s

keiferski 5 hours ago | parent

Hah, I came here to say the same thing. Let’s get to regular boring intelligence before we start talking about super intelligence.

ModernMech 5 hours ago | parent

Calling it to super intelligence is a commitment to never fix K12 education.

Why bother educating people when a "super intelligence" exists to do all the thinking? "Artificial" intelligence, sure, it's artificial not the real thing, so we still need people. But "super" intelligence? That language puts it above human intelligence, and intentionally diminishes humanity with their mere normal intelligence.

(FWIW putting a dilettante and then wrestling mogul in charge of the Department of Education and gutting it was also a commitment to never fix K12 education, so this is not new)

AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago | parent

A step further: That road leads toward a population that will be obedient to the "supers" rather than think for itself.

petcat 5 hours ago | parent

Isn't USA pretty average compared to the rest of the developed world?

igetspam 4 hours ago | parent

Did we make it all the way up to average?! Good for us!

osener 4 hours ago | parent

Feels like sunk cost fallacy. Clearly US is so far behind in human facing concerns so might as well not waste any more of the precious resources. Let’s just double down on investing in the prosperity few rich armed with super intelligent robots and maybe they’ll solve the problem by accelerating the pace of making the rest of the world so much worse that this comparison is over once and for all.

bulbar 2 hours ago | parent

Why would a billionaire do that, though.

kaladin-jasnah 1 hour ago | parent

Does this depend on the state you live in? A K-12 education in Massachusetts is different from K-12 education in Alabama to me. Although I am guessing this is an overall statement about the US.

vineyardmike 1 hour ago | parent

This feels like the eternal fallacy of US metrics. You have good states, and bad states, and everyone’s judged on the lowest denominator.

Massachusetts- 99% have healthcare, longer lifespan than most developed nations, top US education system, diverse economy, wealthiest population, strong safety net, high minimum wage, safe communities w low gun violence, net provider of federal tax revenue, etc

Alabama - best bet is to start driving north now

shydrablack 5 hours ago | parent

I still prefer AI; it's better. The SI is just another way of taking ppl's money with domain names. few weeks before the announcement. Most amazing one-word .si domains were already taken. Now they are being sold for 3, 4, or even 5 figures. Keep it AI. Keep it simple!

bix6 5 hours ago | parent

I cannot stand this administration and their Trump branding of everything. Fuck everything about this.

shadowgovt 5 hours ago | parent

It's narcissism. The missing ingredient is narcissism.

Understand that and a lot of the behavior of this administration makes sense.

alecst 5 hours ago | parent

Relieved to know the Assistant to the President for the Office of the First Lady is a key part of the SI Task Force.

computerphage 5 hours ago | parent

There's an ongoing race to build capabilities and there's a race to understand, control, and align these systems. If we rush too far ahead in the first race, we face disaster. That's why so many people working at the leading American companies signed the pacing the frontier letter.

andsoitis 4 hours ago | parent

> If we rush too far ahead in the first race, we face disaster. That's why so many people working at the leading American companies signed the pacing the frontier letter.

They're after regulatory capture, disadvantaging competition.

OpenAI and Anthropic have collectively spent tens of billions of dollars, with their annual burn rates climbing rapidly, for something that increasingly commoditized at the non-frontier (i.e. MOST) applications.

That doesn't mean there aren't ALSO people who are worried that we will kills ourselves with AI, but they are in the minority.

GuB-42 5 hours ago | parent

Putting aside the political ideas, I find the website pretty cool!

It looks more like the kind of thing a web designer or demoscener would put up to show off his productions than a government website about a hot political topic.

bikrampanda 5 hours ago | parent

Its cool, but too many distracting things which makes it a bit difficult to read. Specifically the bounce effect, is a bit disorienting to view on a large screen.

xale3658B 5 hours ago | parent

i'm pretty sure the branding is just to filter anyone that isn't loyal to trump, anyone that doesn't agree with the new term is easily identified then slowly set aside.

AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago | parent

That explains, not just this, but many other things - the absurd, indefensible statements that are still defended, the court cases, the denial of election losses, and probably more that don't come to mind after five seconds of thought.

This is also close to the authoritarian "make people say absurd things as a demonstration of power over them" playbook.

causesothere 1 hour ago | parent

This is exactly what it is for. Fascism deploys hypocrisy very deliberately for exactly this reason. If you conform, it's a signal you will continue to conform to the admins policies. Push it until it's silly. People willing to look the fool, but remain loyal, are valuable to the admin.

They do this (at least at first) to pull people out of their staff who would slow them down or fight them. Then they expand the scope, where they hope to reach the entire population.

hyperhello 5 hours ago | parent

While I wait for my mail in ballot to be delivered, which is taking a suspiciously long time, while the President, who has already ben impeached for one visible and overt coup attempt, has specifically ordered the USPS not to deliver them on either side, this is a good place to note to you, that he has also declared anyone who doesn’t call it super intelligence to be THE ENEMY, in all caps.

hackyhacky 5 hours ago | parent

> who has already ben impeached for one visible and overt coup attempt,

Don't "overt" and "visible" mean the same thing in this context?

margalabargala 4 hours ago | parent

No. Similar but different definitions. Like "obvious and blatant".

pentaphobe 4 hours ago | parent

Something can be covert and (unintentionally) visible

Just like it can be overt and invisible

AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago | parent

Guess I've signed up to be THE ENEMY, then.

WesolyKubeczek 4 hours ago | parent

> has also declared anyone who doesn’t call it super intelligence to be THE ENEMY, in all caps.

Ain’t that what the so-called woke pussies do? Inventing words and declaring all who won’t adopt them enemies?

Oh how the turntables turn…

Muromec 4 hours ago | parent

Careful there. Seeing contradictions and mistakes made by your dear leader may not be as good of an idea as you it sounds. For the only reason that nobody would lift their ass to do anything else but raise their grave concerns over yet another violation of civil conduct by offending parties, which will probably not help to ones suffering from such.

andsoitis 4 hours ago | parent

> > has also declared anyone who doesn’t call it super intelligence to be THE ENEMY, in all caps.

> Ain’t that what the so-called woke pussies do? Inventing words and declaring all who won’t adopt them enemies? > Oh how the turntables turn…

Do you think that maybe this is an "American" (culture) disease? Not a right/left thing?

verdverm 3 hours ago | parent

Just wait, we'll have SIVID lab leak conspiracy theories for y'all before long...

psma_egeliaa 4 hours ago | parent

Yes, but who told you the GP was in that camp? Speaking from experience, plenty of people on the left thought the whole master branch, the pronouns or (even worse) whitelist thing to be insane.

andsoitis 4 hours ago | parent

> While I wait for my mail in ballot to be delivered

What state / city are you in?

Mine arrived more than a week ago.

api 3 hours ago | parent

He should have called it America Intelligence (AI), no need to change the acronym.

Gotta commit to the bit.

Our country is now a "bit," one that unfortunately kills people. This timeline sucks.

panarky 3 hours ago | parent

I was saying superintelligence before, it's a descriptive and meaningful term, better than ASI for common usage, too bad I can't use it any more.

api 3 hours ago | parent

ASI must now be known as Best Intelligence (BI).

skeeter2020 59 minutes ago | parent

oppo FB: you need to add a "the". THE Best Intelligence... that's your name right there.

jgilias 1 hour ago | parent

But then his insiders wouldn’t have profited off of the Slovenian domain names they bought up a couple months before the announcement.

yubblegum 1 hour ago | parent

How did we end up here. Even Super Cringe can't possibly describe this administration and this unhinged con man and the money behind him who have been granted excessive powers by an irresponsible Supreme Court and are enshitifying everything about our nation. Super Intelligence.

This vote is critical.

nnevatie 1 hour ago | parent

Because the US at large is woefully uneducated and perceptible to propaganda.

yubblegum 58 minutes ago | parent

I doubt the members of the Court that granted effective total immunity to the executive (which a sole member found profoundly wrong) are "uneducated" and perceptible to propaganda. That the masses are led by nose is SOP in every country, without exception.

nnevatie 53 minutes ago | parent

The US elected a clearly incompetent leader, not once, but twice. If that is not explained by lack of education and propaganda, I don’t know what is.

TehCorwiz 5 hours ago | parent

I’m not using that term to describe a field of study over 80 years old.

You might as well try to unilaterally rename one of the Great Lakes.

dotancohen 5 hours ago | parent

Or the Gulf Of Mexico.

knottn 4 hours ago | parent

Or cybersecurity.

pwdisswordfishq 1 hour ago | parent

Wait, did he attempt that one too?

causesothere 1 hour ago | parent

"Cyber". I think.

ModernMech 3 hours ago | parent

The question isn't whether you will, it's which corporations jump on this. Google jumped on Gulf of America and Lake America. Will they now start calling Gemini an SI model?

bulbar 2 hours ago | parent

As far as I know, Google Maps has mostly called stuff as the government of a country calls it, for the citizen of the country that is.

Outside of the US, it's still shown by the actual name, with the "local name" shown in parentheses.

It's a very complicated topic, it's just that in stable countries/regions, you don't tend to have direct contact with it.

sodapopcan 1 hour ago | parent

At for me here in Canada it's showing as Lake Ontario. No parentheses, no "other name," just Lake Ontario.

SpicyLemonZest 1 hour ago | parent

It's true in general, but I just don't understand how Google can't see where this is going. He's going order a renaming that's so stupid they can't go through with it - he's floated the "Trump Ocean" - and then their punishment will be much more severe with much less defense from the rest of us than if they'd taken a stand in the first place.

cheney_2004 5 hours ago | parent

From what I’ve been told, this is like back in the 1990’s when the US collectively decided to outsource manufacturing to other countries via coordinated action between the government and industry. The motivation was too boost profits. Here we are today, our manufacturing base gutted and a lot of hard working Americans left with nothing. AI is the same thing, except it’s going after our high paying jobs and collective knowledge. So our future again will be one will less good jobs for hard working people, but also one where knowledge is much less valuable.

dotancohen 4 hours ago | parent

This time the borders are open and if the US does not compete, it will be out-competed.

Conflicts are most often won not by the stronger side, but by the side which recognises first that the conflict exists.

ndsipa_pomu 4 hours ago | parent

Unfortunately, it's easy to recognise that there's a systematic class war (between the property-owning classes and the rest), but the balance of power is so skewed that knowing about it doesn't particularly help. I suppose the problem is also that a lot of the poorer people actively vote and work to help the property-owners even though it's completely against their interests.

iamanllm 1 hour ago | parent

this whole thread reads like russian propaganda

lotu 1 hour ago | parent

Power lies wherever the people believe it lies, and that is something that can shift very quickly.

nu11ptr 5 hours ago | parent

AI is the correct term because it describes "what" it is (artificial, not natural intelligence). SI describes the magnitude and is no doubt meant as marketing, which then invites different prefixes over time ("ultra intelligence", etc.), creating consumer confusion.

dotancohen 4 hours ago | parent

Ultra High Speed 4.0 Intelligence.

ChrisMarshallNY 4 hours ago | parent

Ultra Max Pro Tactical Intellect Titanium Edition XXX

realo 1 hour ago | parent

You forgot Gold Premium 2.0

jhanschoo 3 hours ago | parent

With a Type-C Class S Mk I harness.

stego-tech 1 hour ago | parent

Just wait until the USB-IF starts naming it…

dofm 1 hour ago | parent

The correct term is whatever the President says, if you wish your M&A aspirations to proceed unimpeded.

(Even then a donation to the ballroom will cover any incidents where members of your board slip up and forget their good intentions)

pmkary 1 hour ago | parent

_king with the invisible outfit..._

ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago | parent

Bite your keyboard!

It's emperor!

bifftastic 1 hour ago | parent

Trump thinks "artificial" means "fake". He is obsessed with real vs fake: fake news, realDonaldTrump.

hairofadog 1 hour ago | parent

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Here is his exact quote:

"The use of the word 'artificial' makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports."

ravenstine 1 hour ago | parent

This is just the beginning. It may be a matter of months or even days before "quantum super intelligence" reaches the public consciousness.

throwaway27448 1 hour ago | parent

I see people just skip over the part where "intelligence" is uncomfortably difficult to define and may not be a generally coherent concept to begin with.

louprado 1 hour ago | parent

The correct term is "chatbot" in most cases. I've witnessed people make dumb decisions somewhat blindly because "AI" recommended it. If they had called it a chatbot maybe some skepticism would have kicked in.

sixtyj 1 hour ago | parent

This.

Let’s ask chat(bot) vs let’s ask super intelligence - it is a different game.

everybodyknows 1 hour ago | parent

How long before colleges still using "artificial intelligence" are threatened with defunding?

Izkata 1 hour ago | parent

"ASI" (artificial super-intelligence) has been a term for decades.

Toutouxc 5 hours ago | parent

I refuse to believe these people aren’t just LARPing Idiocracy at this point.

ndsipa_pomu 4 hours ago | parent

They're aiming for more stupidity that Idiocracy as their president (in Idiocracy) realised that asking the "most intelligent" person to help solve their problems was a good idea.

krapp 3 hours ago | parent

They aren't LARPing, they really are idiots.

pmkary 1 hour ago | parent

Here we are: spending our time debating whether we arrived at idiocracy by chance or purpose...

sigmarule 5 hours ago | parent

If AI -> Super Intelligence, is ASI -> Super Duper Intelligence? SDI!

a3w 4 hours ago | parent

AFI, American Freedom Intelligence. Mark my words, dumb people will use that, soon, since ASI/SI is actually the same term by just lazily leaving of a redundant part of the term.

cheschire 59 minutes ago | parent

Super Theoretical Intelligence. It's contagious.

comrade1234 5 hours ago | parent

Super cringe.

dotancohen 4 hours ago | parent

That's SC. Close.

TrackerFF 5 hours ago | parent

Trump is flailing, and desperate to build a legacy. This SI nonsense is his take at the Al Gore Internet thing. I'm just surprised he didn't shoehorn in "Trump".

a3w 5 hours ago | parent

> largest SI ecosystem

wait, we need more than one future ruler of earth? Won't any two Skynets fight each other for control, which is why the US want to be first, not second, after PRC?

croes 4 hours ago | parent

> America is in a race for Super Intelligence. We intend to win it.

Race for not race of?

So it means they still didn’t reach Super Intelligence, which means Super Intelligence is the new name of AGI means AI is still AI.

NicoJuicy 4 hours ago | parent

What economic rewards? More produits for the magnificent 7.

What else?

amelius 4 hours ago | parent

> Under President Trump, the nation aims to usher in a new golden age of innovation

What a joke. Maybe we should ask ChatGPT about a few of his "alternative facts".

leonflexo 4 hours ago | parent

Can we stop with the animate on scroll backgrounds.

IAmGraydon 4 hours ago | parent

This is a very effective way to ensure no one ever calls it super intelligence.

sbt 4 hours ago | parent

The most cringe administration in human memory, in any country.

nnevatie 1 hour ago | parent

Indeed, makes Idiocracy look like a documentary.

pmkary 1 hour ago | parent

A very high bar prediction of the future which sadly like all utopias could not be delivered.

Atreiden 4 hours ago | parent

Saying AI now doubleplus ungood. It is goodthink to accept SI > humans and thoughtcrime otherwise

igetspam 4 hours ago | parent