Trump's AI rebrand causes 'unprecedented' demand for Slovenian website names
The president wants AI to be called super intelligence - or SI - the same initials used by Slovenian domains.
Trump’s AI rebrand drives ‘unprecedented’ demand for Slovenian website names
President Donald Trump’s effort to rename AI may be linked to an “unprecedented” surge in domain-name registrations in Slovenia, according to the country’s official national registry.
The president wants AI to be called super intelligence — or SI — the same initials used by Slovenian websites.
Register.si spokesperson Klara Herman said 44,000 web addresses with the .si suffix were registered in September, up from fewer than 2,000 in August — a rise of more than 2,100%.
She said the level of activity in late September was “unprecedented” compared with the previous 12 months.
President Trump urged the technology be renamed during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 11 September.
“The use of the word artificial makes it sound fake,” he said.
“It’s not fake, it’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful... welcome to the new world of super intelligence.”
Internet domains are the unique human-readable addresses people type into web browsers to reach websites, such as bbc.co.uk.
Herman said September registrations for .si web addresses stood out “very clearly” from the other months of the year, though she was “cautious” about blaming the entire increase solely on President Trump’s remarks.
She said 11,000 new registrations were recorded on 30 September alone.
One possible reason for the purchases is cyber-squatting, where people register specific domain names speculatively in case they rise in value later and can be sold for a profit.
For instance, in 1997 Rick Schwartz, known as “The Domain King”, bought the domain name men.com for $15,000 (£11,300). He sold it seven years later for $1.32 million.
On Tuesday, President Trump hosted a meeting of top technology bosses for what he called “an extraordinary gathering” of the people “building America’s Golden Age”.
He signed an executive order directing US government departments and agencies to begin using the terms “SI” and “Super Intelligence” and to stop acknowledging the term AI.
The order said SI would replace AI in “official correspondence”, websites, reports and other forms of communication.
Images of the signatures for the order were mocked online, however, after it was noticed that “United States” had been misspelled beneath President Trump’s signature.