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A new CNBC report describes how the language at the top of the industry is shifting. On their third-quarter earnings calls, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk traded “AI” for “super intelligence,” roughly a month after President Trump ordered federal agencies to replace the term artificial intelligence with super intelligence.

According to the report , The CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet stuck with “AI.” Whatever the motivation behind the swap — alignment with the White House, marketing, or genuine conviction — the word "superintelligence" deserves scrutiny, because it carries a promise that the people using it have every incentive to make sound inevitable.

Companies are free to pursue superintelligence, to spend heavily researching it and to explain why they think it’s within reach.…