Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton will serve as the Trump administration’s AI czar and lead a three-month effort to establish the “risks and opportunities” of the technology. Clayton, who was largely expected to lead the White House’s recently formed “Super Intelligence Force,”
Page A2From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 4 October 2026
CEOs sign accord naming AI 'Super Intelligence,' then refuse to call it that when asked
As it ran on the front
On September 22, at the United Nations, the president told the General Assembly that artificial intelligence would be renamed "super intelligence" in all U.S. documents. One week later, on September 29, a group of technology CEOs stood with him outside the White House and signed what he called a "morally binding" document. The Washington Examiner filed the accord's own title two different ways in two stories the same day: "White House Accord on Super Intelligence Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities" in one, "White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities" in the other.
That same September 29, Representative Ro Khanna announced plans to introduce what he called the most comprehensive AI legislation to date, a bill that would ban recursive AI — systems that improve themselves without human input — citing what he termed civilizational extinction risk. The bill is announced, not introduced. The accord is already signed.…
…(cont) On October 1, OpenAI parted ways with three safety researchers the Wall Street Journal reported had shared confidential company information, the kind of alarm that comes from a company losing its internal critics right as its external critics multiply. The same day, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order keeping "Artificial Intelligence" the official term in California state government, calling it a direct challenge to the federal rebrand. California's order says one thing. Washington's accord says another.
Which brings us to today. Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton has been named the administration's AI czar, tasked with spending three months producing a report on the technology's "risks and opportunities" — a review commissioned after the self-regulation accord it is meant to inform had already been signed, after the safety researchers who might have flagged those risks had already been let go. Read the clock with me: the policy came first. The homework came after.
And the six companies whose executives signed a document with "Super Intelligence" in its own title — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI, Nvidia — would not tell the Washington Examiner this week whether they intend to rename their products to match it. They signed the name. They will not say it out loud.
“They put the president's word in the title of their own document and then went mute the second a reporter asked them to say it with their mouths — that is not confusion, that is a company deciding which parts of the deal are binding and which parts are theater. The review that is supposed to catch the risk shows up three months after the thing it is reviewing already has signatures on it, and the safety researchers who might have slowed any of this down are already gone. That is the whole racket: sign the ceremony, skip the name, let the inspector arrive once there is nothing left to inspect.”
“Look, the companies are being careful with terminology, that's just good corporate hygiene, you don't rename a product line over a speech — did I just call a United Nations address a speech, that's not what I meant. And the three-month review isn't behind anything, it's thorough, Director Clayton is a serious person studying a serious technology, the timing is a coincidence of the calendar, not the policy.”
Earlier in this story
- CEOs sign 'morally binding' AI pact that leaves the binding part unnamed By Mitch · the milkman edition, 4 October 2026
- Tennessee hired a chief after four botched executions, got a fifth, named a sixth official to explain it. By Ruth · the wee small hours edition, 4 October 2026
- Tennessee hired a prison chief with four botched executions in the file, got the fifth on Wednesday and the resignation on Saturday; the Justice Department spent the same week asking the judge who struck its press ban to restore it on grounds of professionalism. By Ruth · the midnight edition, 4 October 2026
The receipts
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed an executive order pushing back on efforts by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to use the term “super intelligence.” “I just signed an executive order permanently declaring Artificial Intelligence ‘Artificial Intelligence’ in California,”
San Francisco-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has "parted ways" with three safety researchers who allegedly shared "confidential company information," The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, prompting fresh alarm among critics who accuse the ChatGPT maker of sidelining internal warnings about the risks posed by its…
President Donald Trump wants artificial intelligence to be known as “super intelligence,” but the companies building the technology have yet to follow his lead. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI, and Nvidia would not disclose to the Washington Examiner whether they plan to rename their companies or products, or otherwise adopt…
· Citing 'Civilizational Extinction Risk,' Khanna to Intro Bill to Ban Recursive AI from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Trump looks to rebrand AI from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.