AI, the UN, Xi and Trump

It’s a big week for global leaders talking about AI. We’ve got a bunch of presidents and prime ministers at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York—motorcades are creating chaos in Midtown Manhattan right now—and Chinese president Xi Jinping is due to arrive in Washington tomorrow. The top executives from most big tech firms will be at a state dinner on Thursday night with Xi, while some will also be at the U.N. earlier in the week.

You can bet AI will dominate much of the discussion both at the U.N. and in Washington. It’s unlikely anything of substance will emerge, although there’ll be plenty of breathless headlines. On Tuesday morning, for instance, President Donald Trump made news by pronouncing that artificial intelligence would henceforth be known as super intelligence in U.S. government paperwork, because the word “artificial” makes AI sound “fake.” (See below for more on this.) Glad to see the leader of the free world is staying on top of the most important issues!