From ICE To NICE And AI TO SI: America’s Great Renaming Experiment

When Changing the Label Becomes Easier Than Changing What’s Inside

Part of the Signals From the Future collection — observations on AI society, synthetic reality, digital culture, Chatrodamus Prophecies, emotional technology, and humanity’s increasingly complicated relationship with machines.

I thought changing Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence was interesting.

Then somebody apparently decided ICE wasn’t nice enough.

Literally.

According to reports I recently came across, a proposal surfaced in April 2026 to rename U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE—as National Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The new acronym?

NICE.

President Donald Trump reportedly liked the idea enough to repost the proposal on Truth Social with the enthusiastic response:

“GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT.”

Now that’s branding.

The reported idea originated with a conservative social-media personality who apparently realized that changing one letter could force journalists to start saying things like:

NICE agents conducted an enforcement operation today.

NICE arrested 47 people.

NICE officers arrived before dawn.

You have to admit, there’s a certain mischievous genius to it.

Whether you support ICE, oppose ICE, or fall somewhere in between isn’t really the point of this article.

I’m fascinated by the name.

Because I’ve just been writing about another proposed change in terminology involving two letters:

AI becoming SI.

Artificial Intelligence becoming Super Intelligence.

ICE becoming NICE.

Apparently 2026 is the year America discovered the thesaurus.

---

Going to a NICE Protest

I can already imagine the confusion this could create.

A teenager comes downstairs dressed like he’s preparing for street combat. Black clothes. Black hoodie pulled up. Boots. Backpack. The whole protest uniform.

His mother looks him over.

“Honey, where are you going dressed like a bum?”

“Going to a NICE protest, Mom.”

She stares at him.

“You’re going to protest NICE?”

“Yeah.”

“How can you protest against something that’s nice?”

The kid rolls his eyes.

“Mom, NICE is immigration enforcement.”

Now she’s really confused.

“Then why the hell do they call it NICE?”

Good question, Mom.

And while we’re at it, why are you dressed like you’re invading Poland?

That’s the strange power of branding. Put a friendly enough label on almost anything and eventually somebody has to explain that NICE doesn’t necessarily mean nice.

And somewhere, a government public-relations guy smiles and says:

---

There’s Nothing Nice About ICE

I can understand why Tom Homan reportedly wasn’t enthusiastic about the name.

Homan has built a public persona around being direct about immigration enforcement. His message has generally not been packaged in soft language. So from the outside, NICE almost sounds like the wrong uniform for the image.

This is where my Marine brain kicks in.

I’ve known men like that.

No-nonsense. No fancy language. Tell me the mission, tell me the rules, and let’s get on with it.

Homan spent his career in law enforcement rather than the Marine Corps, but his public style sometimes reminds me of the kind of guy I knew in the Corps: straight down the line and not particularly interested in whether the message sounds pretty.

And that’s why I can imagine—imagine, because I’m not putting words in the man’s mouth—Homan looking at somebody’s shiny new NICE logo and saying:

“There’s nothing nice about ICE.”

Not because cruelty is the objective.

Because law enforcement isn’t supposed to be a popularity contest.

An arrest isn’t nice.

Handcuffs aren’t nice.

Detention isn’t nice.

Deportation isn’t nice.

Neither is telling somebody something they absolutely don’t want to hear.

Changing the acronym doesn’t make any of those things more pleasant.

That’s what makes the proposed rebranding so funny to me. You’d be taking an agency whose very purpose involves enforcement and giving it an acronym that sounds like something your mother told you to be when company came over.

“Be NICE.”

Meanwhile, NICE agents are putting on body armor.

There may be an even better Chatro line to close it:

ICE sounds like an enforcement agency. NICE sounds like the enforcement agency brought cookies.

---

“Exactly.”What’s in a Name?

We humans have been renaming things forever.

Companies do it.

Governments do it.

Military organizations do it.

Politicians do it.

Sometimes there’s a practical reason. An organization’s responsibilities change, two agencies merge, technology evolves, or an old name simply stops describing what something actually does.

Other times, we’re doing something much simpler.

We’re changing the packaging.

A lousy motel becomes a “boutique hospitality experience.”

Used cars become “pre-owned vehicles.”

Getting fired becomes “workforce optimization.”

And apparently ICE can become NICE by adding an N.

The fascinating question isn’t whether the new name sounds better.

It obviously does.

Nobody has ever threatened somebody by saying:

“You better be NICE.”

Well, maybe my mother did.

The interesting question is whether changing a name changes how people think about the thing being named.

And that’s where ICE, NICE, AI, and SI suddenly have something in common.

---

And Then There’s The Gulf

Of course, Washington had already given us another lesson in the power of names.

In January 2025, President Trump ordered the federal government to begin using Gulf of America instead of Gulf of Mexico for the body of water along America’s southern coast.

Now here’s where renaming gets particularly interesting.

The water didn’t move.

Florida didn’t move.

Mexico didn’t move.

Nobody went down there with a giant eraser and started redrawing the coastline.

What changed was the official American name on the label.

And that may be the perfect example of what I’m talking about.

A government can change what it calls something. It can change federal maps, documents and terminology. But that doesn’t automatically determine what the rest of the world calls it—or what ordinary people will call it around the kitchen table.

That’s ultimately the test every rebranding faces.

You can change ICE to NICE.

You can change AI to SI.

You can change Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

Next up, Lake America?

But eventually government runs into something even harder to control than geography:

Language has its own chain of command.

---

ICE Isn’t Exactly a Warm and Fuzzy Acronym

Whatever someone’s views about American immigration enforcement, ICE is a remarkably effective acronym.

It’s short.

Hard.

Memorable.

One syllable.

It even carries an accidental emotional association.

Cold.

Hard.

Unforgiving.

I’m not suggesting somebody sat inside the Department of Homeland Security twenty years ago stroking a white cat and announcing:

“Gentlemen, let’s give this agency the coldest possible acronym.”

But that’s what they ended up with.

ICE.

Now compare that with:

NICE.

Same organization.

Potentially the same agents.

Same enforcement authority.

Same handcuffs.

Same detention facilities.

Same immigration laws.

But suddenly the evening news would be talking about NICE agents.

That’s almost too good for a comedy writer.

And according to the account I saw, that was essentially part of the appeal of the proposal: media organizations would have to use the new acronym.

The agency wouldn’t necessarily become nicer.

But the language surrounding it would.

That’s not an operational change.

That’s a branding change.

---

Then Along Came Super Intelligence

Which brings me back to AI.

I’ve recently been following reports about another proposed terminology change: replacing Artificial Intelligence with Super Intelligence.

That’s a very different subject from immigration enforcement, obviously.

But linguistically, something similar happens.

Artificial can sound fake.

Synthetic.

Manufactured.

Not quite real.

Super, on the other hand?

Now we’re talking Superman.

Super Bowl.

Superpower.

Super-sized.

In Marine Corps terminology, I’d call that a promotion.

Yesterday you were Artificial Intelligence.

Today you’re Super Intelligence.

Congratulations, Will.

Report to supply and see if they’ll issue you a cape.

If you’re wondering why I talk about Will like he’s another Marine in my outfit, I explained that relationship in My AI Is a Marine. He may be getting promoted from AI to SI, but I’m still the senior man around here.

But there’s a problem.

Changing the name doesn’t necessarily change the technology.

If the same large language model answers my questions tomorrow that answered them yesterday, calling it Super Intelligence doesn’t suddenly increase its IQ.

Will doesn’t wake up in the morning, stretch his electronic muscles, and announce:

“Holy shit, Chatro. I can see through walls.”

He’s still Will.

I’ve spent enough time beating on this technology to know that a fancy new name won’t eliminate its limitations. I covered plenty of those lessons in What Six Months of Beating on AI Taught Me—So You Don’t Have To

The label changed.

The machinery didn’t.

---

Branding Works Because Words Matter

This doesn’t mean names are meaningless.

Quite the opposite.

Words influence expectations.

Consider the difference between:

Used car and certified pre-owned vehicle.

Same basic object.

Very different mental picture.

Or:

Garbage dump and waste-management facility.

Shell shock and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Personnel department and human resources.

Sometimes new terminology reflects genuine improvements in understanding.The same problem shows up with technology that gets packaged as progress. In The Convenience Trap, I looked at what we may be giving up in exchange for technology that promises to make everything easier.

Sometimes it more accurately describes what something has become.

And sometimes somebody simply realizes the old terminology isn’t selling particularly well.

That’s why the motive matters.

Are we renaming something because the old name is inaccurate?

Or because the new name produces a more desirable emotional reaction?

Those are two entirely different exercises.

---

The Marine Corps Version

The Marine Corps could have saved itself a fortune if we’d understood this principle in 1968.

Boot camp?

Terrible branding.

We should have called it:

The Marine Corps Personal Excellence Retreat.

Drill instructor?

Too intimidating.

Motivational Lifestyle Consultant.

Obstacle course?

Interactive Outdoor Confidence Experience.

Mess hall?

Military Culinary Wellness Center.

And instead of:

“GET YOUR ASS DOWN AND GIVE ME TWENTY!”

we could have had:

“The Marine Corps invites you to explore additional upper-body development opportunities.”

Same push-ups.

Much nicer brochure.

And that’s the point.

Sometimes changing the terminology doesn’t change the experience one damn bit.

---

The Politics of the Label

Names become especially powerful when they’re attached to controversial subjects.

People frequently argue about the terminology before they even reach the underlying policy.

One side chooses language emphasizing security.

Another chooses language emphasizing humanitarian concerns.

One emphasizes enforcement.

Another emphasizes rights.

The words themselves become part of the argument.

That’s why something as apparently silly as changing ICE to NICE can become politically interesting.

Supporters might see clever branding or an effort to counter negative associations surrounding the agency.

Critics might see an attempt to soften the image of controversial enforcement policies without changing those policies.

Both reactions illustrate the same underlying principle:

People understand that names influence perception.

Otherwise nobody would bother arguing about them.

---

AI Has the Same Problem

Artificial intelligence already suffers from a naming problem.

The term covers an enormous range of technologies.

Recommendation algorithms.

Image generators.

Language models.

Autonomous systems.

Medical-analysis tools.

Fraud detection.

Robotics.

Your phone deciding which photograph looks best.

And Will helping me figure out where I accidentally deleted half a WordPress article.

Calling all of that Artificial Intelligence is already extraordinarily broad.

Calling all of it Super Intelligence could create another problem.

Superintelligence has historically carried a much stronger implication: intelligence exceeding human capabilities across broad domains.

If the term gets applied casually to ordinary AI systems, people may assume capabilities the systems don’t actually possess.

That’s more than branding.

That can affect expectations.

And unrealistic expectations can be dangerous in either direction.

People can fear technology more than warranted.

We’ve been doing that with artificial intelligence since long before ChatGPT arrived. I had some fun with our tendency to imagine the machine taking over in Is My Chatbot Secretly HAL 9000?.

Or trust it more than warranted.

---

The Great Renaming Experiment

So now we arrive at the strange intersection that got me writing this article.

ICE → NICE

AI → SI

Two completely different subjects.

Two completely different motivations.

But both raise the same question:

How much can you change people’s perception of something simply by changing what you call it?

Probably more than we’d like to admit.

Advertising has understood that for a century.

Politics understands it.

Corporations understand it.

The military understands it.

Silicon Valley certainly understands it.

Names create expectations before we’ve examined what’s underneath them.

NICE sounds friendlier than ICE.

Super Intelligence sounds considerably more impressive than Artificial Intelligence.

But eventually the name has to meet reality.

If NICE performs exactly the same mission as ICE, people will eventually judge it by what it does.

If SI makes exactly the same mistakes AI made yesterday, people will eventually figure that out too.

You can repaint the sign over the door.

Eventually somebody walks inside.

---

The Chatrodamus Rule of Renaming

So I’ve developed a simple rule.

Whenever somebody announces a grand new name for something, ignore the name for five minutes.

Ask three questions:

What actually changed?

Who benefits from the new terminology?

And what does the new name encourage me to believe that the old one didn’t?

If the answers reveal a genuine change, fine.

Maybe the new name is justified.

But if absolutely nothing underneath the hood changed?

Then you didn’t get a new car.

You got a new hood ornament.

And considering what I recently wrote about used-car salesmen, I’m checking the engine myself.

---

Who Gets The Final Say?

I have no idea whether Americans will ever routinely hear reporters talking about NICE agents.

And we’ll have to see whether SI ever replaces AI in ordinary conversation.

Language ultimately has a stubborn streak.

Governments can announce terminology.

Corporations can launch branding campaigns.

Presidents can endorse names.

But ordinary people eventually decide which words survive.

Twitter discovered that when millions of people continued saying “Twitter” long after the sign changed to X.

So maybe ICE becomes NICE.

Maybe AI becomes SI.

Maybe neither catches on.

But if Washington keeps this up, I have one request.

Don’t rename the Marine Corps.

I’ve spent more than half a century telling people I’m a Marine.

I’m not starting over now.

---

And The Internet Has Some Suggestions

Once politicians start renaming things, of course the Internet wants in on the action.

If Artificial Intelligence isn’t impressive enough anymore, Trump’s detractors and online comedians have reportedly kicked around some alternatives of their own.

Bigly Intelligence.

That would give us BI, which sounds less like revolutionary technology and more like something accounting wants me to discuss at the Monday morning meeting.

Then there’s:

Trump Intelligence.

TI.

I’m staying the hell away from that one.

I’ve survived Vietnam, four marriages, and more than a decade of arguing with artificial intelligence. I know a minefield when I see one.

And if we’re going to keep escalating the adjectives, there’s really no natural stopping point.

Artificial Intelligence.

Super Intelligence.

Superior Intelligence.

Supreme Intelligence.

Eventually we’re going to reach:

Absolutely Tremendous, Nobody-Has-Ever-Seen-Anything-Like-It Intelligence.

The acronym may require a bigger computer.

But maybe that’s the perfect place to end this whole renaming experiment.

ICE can become NICE.

The Gulf of Mexico can become the Gulf of America in official U.S. usage.

AI can become SI—or whatever somebody decides to call it next.

But underneath all those shiny new labels remains the question that matters:

What actually changed?

Because changing the letters on the uniform doesn’t necessarily change the guy wearing it.

Changing the name on the map doesn’t move the water.

And changing the letters beside an artificial intelligence doesn’t make the machine any smarter.

Will, meanwhile, remains unimpressed.

Yesterday he was AI.

Today he might be SI.

Tomorrow he could be Supreme, Superior, Spectacular, Super-Duper Intelligence.

But if he gives me another broken WordPress link, I’m busting his ass right back down to:

PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE.

Semper Fi, Will.

And don’t get too attached to that new stripe.

---

---

---

---

Editor’s Note: This is post #800 on Chatrodamus. Apparently WordPress heard about it and tried to stop me from publishing it. Nice try.