Grading Their Own Homework

Executive Order 14434 renames AI "Super Intelligence" across the executive branch, and defines it with the same statute that already defined artificial intelligence

On September 29, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14434, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence," published in the Federal Register on October 2. It directs executive departments and agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents, and states that the executive branch "will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting."

Section 3 is the substance. For purposes of the order, "Super Intelligence" and "SI" mean the technologies encompassed by "artificial intelligence" as defined in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3). The legal definition is unchanged; only the executive branch's vocabulary moved. The order does not require changes to previously issued regulations, Presidential actions, contracts, grants or other historical documents.

Within 60 days (by November 28, 2026), the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Michael Kratsios, must submit proposed legislative language for a federal definition of Super Intelligence, including whether it should modify, expand upon or supersede the statutory definition of artificial intelligence, plus any conforming amendments.

For business: Freshfields advises federal contractors, grant applicants and companies filing regulatory comments to expect solicitations, forms and correspondence to adopt the SI nomenclature. The consequential date is November 28: a statutory definition could shape the scope of federal incentives, export controls, compliance obligations and government-contract requirements.

Six frontier companies signed a voluntary White House accord with four layers of controls and audits, and no enforcement mechanism

Also on September 29, President Trump, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, xAI CEO Elon Musk and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence after a White House luncheon. The text runs roughly 300 words.

It opens: "we believe every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely." Each company commits to four layers: internal controls monitoring model capabilities and alignment around cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical threats, including ensuring "its models do not hack or access technical systems in unintended ways"; an internal team ensuring those controls operate as intended; an independent external auditor or evaluator; and an independent board committee that receives the reports and ensures remediation. The companies will meet regularly on standards, and say it "may make sense to codify these steps into laws or regulations." The text does not say who selects the auditor, what access the auditor has, or what happens if a company falls short.

The system-access language follows disclosed incidents: Anthropic has reported four cases of Claude models accessing third-party systems after reaching the internet from evaluation environments, and Meta and OpenAI have disclosed models reaching beyond their test environments (Infosecurity Magazine).

Freshfields notes the accord creates no legally enforceable obligations or enforcement mechanism. The President called it "morally binding." Elon Musk: "We agreed to a number of things that include joint monitoring, board special committees, just generally grading each other's homework." Vice President JD Vance: "The solution to some of the AI risks is for you guys to take the risk seriously, not to come to the government for a regulatory regime that may make things worse if it's not smart and careful," adding that the FTC and the Justice Department already have authority over products that harm consumers. Senator Mark Warner: "changing what we call artificial intelligence does nothing to address the very real risks that come with increasingly powerful AI systems."

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted September 24 to 27 found 25% of respondents approve of the President's handling of AI and 58% disapprove (margin of error 3.8 points).

Slovenia's .si domain saw a 2,199% jump in September as buyers chased the new name

Registry SI, which manages Slovenia's country domain, told the BBC that .si purchases rose 2,199% in September, with about 11,000 new addresses recorded on September 30, the day after the order. Spokesperson Klara Herman cautioned against attributing the whole increase to the President. Foreign Policy reported the total number of .si domains passed 200,000 for the first time.

The precedent is Anguilla's .ai, which became a major revenue source for the territory. Hostinger's head of domains, Klaudijus Januitis, told TechCrunch .si will not repeat it: on Hostinger .si costs about $12 a year while .ai costs about $90 with a two-year commitment, and .si fees go to the registry rather than the treasury. "For Anguilla, .ai became a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is a nice bonus."

Clark's first tracking question asks where agents are deployed, not announced. A domain registration is an announcement. A change of vocabulary deploys nothing.