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I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired.
It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 
From Nov 2023 to Jan 2024 I worked on a tool we called the AI sandbox. Our goal: let federal software devs test out AI tools in a safe way, to discover if they have any use.
Renamed GSAi, the tool has been claimed by DOGE. It is being rolled out on an alarming accelerated schedule.
No one from the new admin wrote a single line of code for it. But GSAi has become their proud "AI-first strategy."
(Previously at my job, rather than AI or any tech we put *people* first. See 18F's work on "human-centered design.")
As my coworker explains in this demo, we knew AI's capability is limited
"The principle is to show you *not* that AI is great for everything, not to try to encourage you to stick AI into every product.... You can get yourself into trouble thinking that it can do things that it can't."
As a fed, I am accustomed to knowledgeable and diverse coworkers who don't get snookered by the latest buzzwords.
But yesterday at GSA headquarters, 6 white guys in suits (one without a tie!) took the stage. They demo'd GSAi like it was pure magic to them.
While saying "this is incredible" over and over, Musk's GSA head Stephen Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a website." The output was not compliant with federal law. It said "Welcome to Our Company" on it and did not resemble a federal website at all.
This garbage demo had a terrified audience
One viewer said "if this is the tool meant to replace us, thank God"
Everyone is afraid for their jobs, their projects, and their democracy. There is a widespread impression that AI is supposed to replace the people who are fired.
I actually don't think that's the plan. Let me explain:
There is a quasi-religion in Silicon Valley that views AI as godlike. This faith has always been parallel to Evangelical Christianity: it has salvation (transhumanism), the rapture (the technological singularity), and demons (Roko's Basilisk)
Lately the AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism.
Together, these two faiths crave the end of American liberal democracy and government. You can smell it at GSA.
They won't replace us with AI because 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍. They want our work to end. DOGE is firing us as fast as possible, and that is the whole plan.
Listen: maybe I'm wrong and this is just the worst software deployment of my career, not actually a conspiracy against democracy.
Maybe these guys just don't see they are frittering away all product and service design knowledge in the agency. And don't even know that they lack this knowledge.
Honestly: From the 2013 failure of healthcare.gov to today, the government *almost* learned how to build software. We were close. Then a bunch of white men in suits swooped in to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Maybe they are just incompetent. But I think it's worse than that.
On stage, Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a plan to rewrite the FAR"
The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, are laws that control how the gov't buys stuff. They are legendary in their complexity for a good reason: to prevent corruption. To protect taxpayer money from theft by beltway bandits.
The AI's "plan" to simplify the FAR was generic and unusable, of course. But it is a subject that Ehikian and DOGE keep returning to: Contracting. Acquisition. The money.
They want to file the corners off of the process that regulates government spending. They want to consolidate all government contracts in one place. And put AI in charge.
I believe the firings and the AI have the same purpose: to get humans out of the loop of evaluating contracts. To automate the process of spending government money. To rig up a computer that sends taxpayer dollars directly to the broligarchy. And to make sure democracy can't switch that computer off.
@skiles Yes yes yes!
(Said the bit in the movie Tron)
The point has never been to increase efficiency, it has been to eliminate AGENCY.
To remove the number of humans that would talk back. The chance someone has a good heart and would not serve, would not stop people getting needlessly hurt etc. To eliminate good conscience.
Why else would you think ”Christian Nationalists” are going on so hard about: ”The Sin of Empathy” right now?
@gimulnautti @skiles "The sin of empathy" is something people actually say?
Yes, they are calling empathy a "sin."
https://canonpress.com/products/the-sin-of-empathy
... and ...
Elon Musk said
"The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-musk-said-fundamental-130000768.html
@JeffGrigg @gimulnautti @skiles I knew about Elon Musk's, er, position on peace love & understanding since his response when questioned about fallout from insisting factory workers carry on in the face of Covid: "People die."
Interesting that it's now being promoted as insightful wisdom.
I dunno. Careful what you wish for, guys.
A lot of pople need to get their heads out of their butts and actually open their Bible to READ IT. For instance John 13.33.
Sorry, but fundamentalist Christians just p!55 me off.
@ParadeGrotesque @JeffGrigg @gimulnautti @skiles I've been told by an evangelical relative in Texas that they've read the bible cover to cover (and probably more than once). They're elderly, and fervent followers of Trump/Cruz/Abbott (and I assume Musk). By whatever means, their capacity to empathize or even to reason has been bleached out of them. I wished them well come time ago, and we no longer talk. At this point I have no idea whether they're still breathing.
I hear you. These people simply surrender all their intellectual independence to a church or a preacher. Whatever is "recommended" by the lead 'evangelist' is accepted without question.
And it goes on and on. These are cults, pure and simple.
@ParadeGrotesque @fgbjr @JeffGrigg @skiles Any text can be twisted by sufficiently advanced narrative into supporting any belief.
Doesn’t even take thousands of years. A decade is more than enough!
@gimulnautti @ParadeGrotesque @JeffGrigg @skiles ~"We just gotta keep our heads until this object permanence craze blows over."~
@ParadeGrotesque @fgbjr @JeffGrigg @gimulnautti @skiles My parents joined an evangelical cult in the DC area (it got written up in the Washington Post). A key feature is that interpretation of a scripture changed over time according to what the leader wanted it to be under the assertion that God had revealed new info to him. If it weren't so horrifying it would have been funny to see how people just went sure yup isn't he amazing!
@fgbjr @gimulnautti @skiles The Acolytes of Ayn.
@gimulnautti @skiles Many of these same "Christians" follow the Prosperity Gospel which preaches the coveting and accumulation of material wealth. What is in the New Testament means nothing to them. America was founded partially by Puritans who believed that the elect would be favored with wealth and the damned with poverty and squalor. Therefore, unbridled greed becomes a virtue and a path to salvation, and conspicuous consumption a sign of being favored.
@profdc9 @skiles Religion is primarily about finding security by belonging in a group. The values and virtues the group signals are secondary to this function.
Research also shows a rather depressing trend: The more costly it is for a religious extremist to signal their belonging (ie. the more it creates cognitive dissonance), the more loyal members become and longer the community lasts.
Cults are unfortunately a feature of the human condition, not a bug.