The Federal Definition of “Super Intelligence” Is Due by November 28. Here's What to Watch

The rename is done. The definition is not. Section 3(b) of Executive Order 14434 gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 60 days from September 29, so until about November 28, 2026, to submit “proposed legislative language to establish a Federal definition of ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’.”

Where things stand

Today, SI legally means “the technologies and systems encompassed by the term ‘artificial intelligence’” in 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3): any “machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.” That covers everything from chatbots to spam filters.

Three questions the proposal must answer

1. Modify, expand or supersede? The order requires an assessment of whether the SI definition should “modify, expand upon, or otherwise supersede” the AI definition. A narrower SI definition, for example covering only frontier systems, could change which rules apply to what.
2. Conforming amendments. Dozens of federal laws mention “artificial intelligence” or “AI”. The proposal must suggest how to update them.
3. Further executive action. Recommendations for additional presidential or agency steps to implement the definition.

Why it matters

• For businesses: if SI is redefined more narrowly than AI, some products might fall outside future “SI” rules, or inside new ones.
• For the superintelligence debate: a definition that leans on “Super Intelligence” as beyond-human capability would collide with the existing research meaning of superintelligence and with proposals to ban it.
• For Congress: the proposal is just that. Nothing changes in statute unless Congress passes it.

We’ll cover the proposal when it lands. Subscribe to The SI Brief to get it by email.