superintelligence
In plain wordsA mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist.
- 1
A hypothetical intellect that would outclass the most capable humans not in one specialty, as a chess engine does, but in essentially every kind of intellectual work. The standard formulation is Nick BostromNick Bostrom, prop. n.: A Swedish philosopher whose 2014 book 'Superintelligence' argued that AI smarter than humans could be catastrophic unless its goals are carefully controlled, and helped make AI risk a mainstream concern.'s (1997): an intellect 'much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field', creative and social abilities included. In 2014 he distinguished speed superintelligence (a humanlike mind running much faster), collective superintelligence (many minds organized to outperform any current system) and quality superintelligence (a mind that is qualitatively smarter). Proposed routes include AGIartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive. followed by an intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time., whole brain emulationwhole brain emulation, n.: Copying a particular person's brain into a computer in such detail, down to individual neurons and their connections, that the simulation would think and behave like that person., and enhancement of human brains or organizations. The concept anchors debates about the control problemcontrol problem, n.: The challenge of making sure that an AI much smarter than its makers still does what they intend, and can be corrected or stopped if needed., existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown. and AI timelinesAI timelines, n.: Forecasts of when AI will reach major milestones, such as matching humans at most work. People with short timelines expect this within years; others expect decades, or never.: a superintelligence pursuing goals at odds with human interests might be impossible to correct once deployed, while a well-aligned one might accelerate science, medicine and economic growth dramatically. Since 2023 several frontier laboratoriesfrontier lab, n.: One of the handful of companies building the most advanced AI models of the moment, spending billions of dollars on computing power to train them. have made building or aligning superintelligence an explicit objective.
Our safety case covers today's agents, not anything approaching superintelligence.
- 2
The official name, written 'Super Intelligence' and abbreviated SI, that the US executive branch uses in place of 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI' under Executive Order 14434Executive Order 14434, prop. n.: A September 2026 order by US President Donald Trump telling federal agencies to say 'super intelligence' (SI) instead of 'artificial intelligence' (AI) in official documents and communications., 'Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence' (signed 29 September 2026). The order tells executive agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to adopt the new terms in their own non-statutory material, such as letters, press releases, websites and reports, while leaving earlier regulations, contracts, grants and similar records unrevised. It defines Super Intelligence by reference to the statutory definition of artificial intelligenceartificial intelligence, n.: Computer systems that do things we would normally credit to a thinking mind, such as holding a conversation, reading an X-ray or planning a route, and the field of research that builds them. in 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3), so the label covers the same existing AI technologies rather than systems surpassing human intelligence in the sense above, and it gave the President's science adviser 60 days to propose legislative language for a federal definition. The directive applies to federal agencies, not to private parties.
Origin
Earliest use of the word not established. I. J. Good wrote of an 'ultraintelligent machine' in 1965. Nick Bostrom gave 'superintelligence' its standard definition in 'How Long Before Superintelligence?' (first version 1997, published 1998) and brought it into wide use with Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014). AI companies adopted it in names such as OpenAI's Superalignment team (2023), Safe Superintelligence Inc. (2024) and Meta Superintelligence Labs (2025); the US federal sense dates from Executive Order 14434 (2026).
Usage note
Usage has loosened: companies sometimes call systems that beat experts on many benchmarks 'superintelligent', blurring the line with AGIartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive.. Skeptics doubt that intelligence is a single scale that can be exceeded across the board. Artificial superintelligence (ASI)artificial superintelligence, n.: Superintelligence in machine form: AI that would outthink the best humans at nearly every intellectual task. Often shortened to ASI and pictured as the stage after human-level AI. specifies the machine case. The 2025 Statement on SuperintelligenceStatement on Superintelligence, prop. n.: A 2025 public statement, signed by scientists, celebrities and politicians, calling for a ban on building superintelligent AI until it is shown to be safe and the public supports it. asked for a ban on developing it until scientists broadly agree it can be made safe and controllable and the public strongly backs it.
Related
- artificial superintelligenceartificial superintelligence, n.: Superintelligence in machine form: AI that would outthink the best humans at nearly every intellectual task. Often shortened to ASI and pictured as the stage after human-level AI.
- artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive.
- intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time.
- control problemcontrol problem, n.: The challenge of making sure that an AI much smarter than its makers still does what they intend, and can be corrected or stopped if needed.
- existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown.
- superalignmentsuperalignment, n.: The problem of keeping AI systems far smarter than humans aligned with human intentions — and the name of OpenAI's short-lived 2023–2024 research team devoted to it.
- Nick BostromNick Bostrom, prop. n.: A Swedish philosopher whose 2014 book 'Superintelligence' argued that AI smarter than humans could be catastrophic unless its goals are carefully controlled, and helped make AI risk a mainstream concern.
- ultraintelligent machineultraintelligent machine, n.: I. J. Good's 1965 name for a machine smarter than any person at every kind of thinking, which could therefore build machines smarter than itself.
- narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems.
Sources
- Bostrom, N. (1998). How Long Before Superintelligence? International Journal of Futures Studies 2.
- Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press.
- Executive Order 14434 of September 29, 2026: Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence. Federal Register 91 FR 63129 (2 October 2026). federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/02/2026-20321/inaugurating-the-era-of-super-intelligence
Defined in law or standards
US Executive Order 14434 (29 Sept. 2026), 91 FR 63129
Mentioned in
artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive., doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated., existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown., intelligenceintelligence, n.: The ability to learn, understand, reason and solve problems — especially new ones — in order to reach goals. Experts disagree about how to define it precisely, for people and even more for machines., paperclip maximizerpaperclip maximizer, n.: A famous thought experiment: an AI built only to make paperclips grows powerful enough to pursue that aim without limit and wipes out humanity as a side effect. It shows that an AI need not hate us to be dangerous., technological singularitytechnological singularity, n.: A moment some people expect in the future when technology, usually AI smarter than us, starts changing the world so fast and so deeply that we cannot see past it., AI as normal technologyAI as normal technology, phr.: The view that AI, however important, will change society gradually, like electricity or the internet, through slow adoption by people and institutions, rather than as a sudden, uncontrollable superintelligence., artificial superintelligenceartificial superintelligence, n.: Superintelligence in machine form: AI that would outthink the best humans at nearly every intellectual task. Often shortened to ASI and pictured as the stage after human-level AI., control problemcontrol problem, n.: The challenge of making sure that an AI much smarter than its makers still does what they intend, and can be corrected or stopped if needed., Executive Order 14434Executive Order 14434, prop. n.: A September 2026 order by US President Donald Trump telling federal agencies to say 'super intelligence' (SI) instead of 'artificial intelligence' (AI) in official documents and communications., fast takeofffast takeoff, n.: A scenario in which AI goes from about human level to far beyond it very quickly, in days, weeks or a few months, leaving people little time to react., Future of Life InstituteFuture of Life Institute, prop. n.: An advocacy group that warns about the dangers of advanced AI and other powerful technologies, funds research and lobbies governments. It organized the 2023 open letter calling for a pause on giant AI experiments., human-level AIhuman-level AI, n.: AI that can match an ordinary adult across the whole range of thinking tasks, such as talking, learning, reasoning and planning. An older, more intuitive name for the goal now usually called general AI., Ilya SutskeverIlya Sutskever, prop. n.: A Russian-born Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who co-built the AlexNet image recognizer, helped found OpenAI and lead its research until 2024, and now heads the startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time., Max TegmarkMax Tegmark, prop. n.: A Swedish-American physicist at MIT who co-founded the Future of Life Institute, which organized the 2023 open letter calling for a pause in training the most powerful AI systems., Meta Superintelligence LabsMeta Superintelligence Labs, prop. n.: A division Meta created in 2025 to pursue superintelligence, gathering all of the company's AI teams under new leaders recruited in an expensive hiring campaign., Mustafa SuleymanMustafa Suleyman, prop. n.: A British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind and Inflection AI, leads Microsoft's effort to build its own advanced AI models, and has written about the difficulty of containing powerful AI., Nick BostromNick Bostrom, prop. n.: A Swedish philosopher whose 2014 book 'Superintelligence' argued that AI smarter than humans could be catastrophic unless its goals are carefully controlled, and helped make AI risk a mainstream concern., orthogonality thesisorthogonality thesis, n.: The idea that how smart an AI is and what it wants are separate matters: a very intelligent machine could pursue almost any goal, including ones that seem pointless or harmful to us., Safe Superintelligence Inc.Safe Superintelligence Inc., prop. n.: A company started in 2024 by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI, with the single goal of building a superintelligent AI that is safe. It sells no products., situational awarenesssituational awareness, n.: An AI model's grasp of its own position — that it is an AI, how it was trained, whether it is being tested. Also the title of a widely read 2024 essay on the race toward human-level AI., slow takeoffslow takeoff, n.: A scenario in which AI becomes superhuman step by step, over years or decades, as it spreads through the economy, giving society time to spot problems and respond., sovereign AIsovereign AI, n.: A country's ability to build and run AI on its own terms, so that the computers, models and know-how it relies on cannot be withheld or dictated by foreign companies or governments.