‘You’re welcome, America’: Newsom signs exec order to keep calling AI ‘AI’ in Cali

BS BULLETIN:

President Trump recently suggested replacing “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence,” or “SI.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by signing a California executive order requiring state agencies to keep using “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI.”
The order is real, takes effect immediately and does not create new legal rights or benefits.

There are executive orders about emergencies, budgets and public safety.

And now there is one settling what California government employees are supposed to call AI.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-10-26 after President Donald Trump publicly floated the idea of renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” or “SI.”

Newsom announced the move with a characteristically short message:

“I just signed an executive order permanently declaring Artificial Intelligence ‘Artificial Intelligence’ in California.”

“You’re welcome, America.”

The document itself leaves very little room for misunderstanding.

It orders all California agencies and departments under Newsom’s authority to refer to Artificial Intelligence and AI using precisely those terms, even if the federal government adopts a different name.

The order includes an exception where doing so would conflict with law.

That is essentially the operative provision.

The one-page order also says it does not create any substantive or procedural rights or benefits enforceable against the state.

Newsom’s own press office seemed fully aware of the unusual nature of the exercise.

The official announcement placed the order under the subheading:

“Signs executive order declaring the obvious.”

The order was a direct response to Trump’s remarks earlier in the week.

Trump said he preferred “super intelligence” because the word “artificial” did not adequately describe increasingly powerful technology, according to video highlighted by Twitchy.

He also suggested “SI” as the shortened replacement for “AI.

Newsom’s executive order contains its own unmistakable jab at the president.

One of its introductory clauses says changing terminology should not distract someone of “normal intelligence” from what the order calls a failure to address emerging AI security and safety risks.

The naming fight came amid considerably more substantive AI action in Sacramento.

On the same day, Newsom’s office announced a package of new state laws dealing with AI in employment, health care, legal services and digital-content transparency.

Those measures include requirements for human review in certain employment decisions, restrictions on workplace surveillance and additional rules involving AI-generated material.

California has also spent much of the year expanding its AI regulatory framework, including independent safety reviews and work toward a possible emergency shutoff system for certain frontier AI models.

But none of that changes the central achievement of Executive Order N-10-26:

In California, AI will remain AI.