Trump administration's whole-government AI plans leaked on GitHub

We're less than a month away from the Trump administration's launch of an initiative to push AI across the entire federal government, based on a code repository eagle-eyed onlookers spotted on GitHub before it disappeared.  The US General Services Administration (GSA, the federal government's purchasing arm) and its Technology …

[Anonymous Coward]

Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

A Bonfire of the Federal State/Deep State? Everything burning down to the ground?

People have their hopes on the midterm elections (hope flies eternal).

But will there be a functioning USA by the time of the midterm elections?

I seriously doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

I prefer the "fire half of them" policy based on employee id numbers, and I don't care whether its the odds or evens that have to stay and do all of the work.

[steviebuk]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

And no doubt, orange tango man will attempt something to rig the elections for the GOP as they know all the republicans are going to get voted out. They'll attempt voter suppression which they are currently attempting to do, especially for folks in the military services that are based abroad.

[Tron]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

In the late 1990s South Korea mandated the use of Microsoft’s ActiveX for online services. That did not go well. Trashing Gov IT by polluting it with AI seems like a similarly crazy idea.

I hope they are taking down the names of those responsible, so they can pay the bills for fixing this when it all goes TU.

[MrAptronym]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

While I agree they are going to try and rig the elections... I sadly think many people are perfectly happy with the looting, cruelty and ineptitude. All signs point to trump being more popular today than he was 5 years ago. My faith in humanity has been worn down to nothing over the past decade.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Corruption and looting

I think those who vote for corrupt politicians do so because they expect to personally profit from the corruption. Those who vote for looting "other people" do so because they think they get part of the loot.

Invariably, these voters are included the ones having to pay for the corruption and being looted by those elected.

Then the question is why these voters think robbing others rather than collaborating for a better future is the best way to improve their lives?

That is easy to answer. It is because these voters have seen that their society has become a zero-sum game where the only way to improve your live is by taking the benefits from other people, by force and before they can take it from you.

Then one can wonder whether they are right?

The income of the median American family has hardly improved since the Reagan era 4 decades ago, but the economy (per capita) has grown by 60% (purchasing power dollars [1]). So the average (median) and below American is right to conclude that they have not been benefiting from the enormous increase of wealth that heaped upon their country. Now they want a part of it.

It is odd these average Americans think they can get at the wealth by robbing it from those who have even less. The net wealth of the top 10% is over $100T. The whole bottom half, which includes all the undocumented immigrants, owns just a meager $4T.

If people want a better life, they won't get it from robbing penniless undocumented immigrants. But then, these won't be able to fight back, so they make the ideal scapegoats to vent the anger.

[1] 100% In real dollars GDP per capita

[DS999]

So stupid

I don't care what technology it is, something that's in its early stages does not belong in an organization everyone depends on in one way or another. The same would be true if someone had proposed the government going all in on Java when that was new or putting everything on the web in the 90s.

[breakfast]

Re: So stupid

Exactly! Governments should be the ultimate conservative consumers - the commercial sector can move fast and break things, any government run with the slightest interest in the wellbeing of its citizens will use tried-and-true technologies for pretty much everything, because those are also the tools that can be made accessible, where useful architectures are well understood, and where the initial bumps have been ironed out.

[Someone Else]

Re: So stupid

[...] any government run with the slightest interest in the wellbeing of its citizens will use tried-and-true technologies for pretty much everything [...]

And there you have it -- yet another indication of the tRump intentions.

_{Did I just hear Steven Miller make a remark about eating cake?}

[MachDiamond]

Re: So stupid

"I don't care what technology it is, something that's in its early stages does not belong in an organization everyone depends on in one way or another."

I was at a trade show talking with a company that makes ruggedized computers and asked why they all seemed to be rather behind on specs.The primary customer is military and companies that have installations in very out of the way places. Leading edge is too twitchy in the real world away from support centers and spare parts. There's no need for the thing to be the fastest and the bestest, it does have to work all of the time. A station in Antarctica doesn't get FedEX overnight deliveries.

Solid, boring, mature tech is what you bring to situations where failure is your neck, buddy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

“ He reportedly wants GSA to operate like a software startup, and proposed a whole-of-government, AI-first strategy to automate much of the work done by federal employees today. ”

All though there are huge improvements to be made, the Government ain’t a software start-up. Not even remotely close. Esp. the more often than not burning investors cash, not delivering anything and going belly-up.

I suppose at least they don’t want to use a Kickstarter model - phew !

[Sp1z]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

Honestly I am starting to over-indulge on popcorn at the moment. This is too funny.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

"Honestly I am starting to over-indulge on popcorn at the moment."

Yeah, time for a break to go play in the garden. Even in the dark.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

The novel "1984" should be ringing alarm bells in every mind right now. These idiots are treating it as a project plan!

[IGotOut]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

Trump doesn't read.

[Tim99]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

Maybe he saw edited highlights from the film, and decided Big Brother was the good guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Gov and AI: What could go wrong?

Disappointed this doesn’t involve Signal, classified information and a person lacking clearance, somehow or somewhere in the story

[Don Jefe]

More government subsidies for private companies once it became clear they couldn’t survive on their own…

I’m sure I remember being taught about the pitfalls of this kind of thing. It all ended, badly, at a gas station in Giulino I believe.

[EricM]

July 4th?

So Independence Day will be turned into the day, the USA became a colony again?

Colonization by a private enterprise has its historic precedents. Think East India Company.

The USA will be the first country owned and exploited by the AI Tech Bros and sociopathic Billionaires.

The Sprawls of Neuromancer are about to form starting in 2025 .. Well done, MAGA ...

[Wang Cores]

Re: July 4th?

It'll be the first time a nation self-colonized for the benefit of a parasitic elite, because it pissed off the intellectuals.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: First time?

"It'll be the first time a nation self-colonized for the benefit of a parasitic elite"

Sorry, but the US is not special, not even as a kleptocracy. Even if we forget how they "acquired " their lands in the past.

We have seen it so many times in history. From Roman senators, to Bagdad caliphates, Russian Czars since Ivan the Terrible down to the current Poisoner of Moscow, English Lords, and every post-colonial African strongman.

It is not surprising that the Orange Utan is copying the very successful den of thief's that form Russia's kleptocracy from his Moscow Idol and role model.

[Casca]

Re: First time?

Thats part of the problem. Its monkey see monkey do without understanding why.

[drankinatty]

Re: First time?

From the article, that pretty much sound like the entirety of the feature set of ai.gov with employee-monitoring. Hopefully it does something more than just aggregating the chatbots in one location. How the hell that's supposed to do anything government is supposed to do is a bit nebulous and bewildering. Sounds like a pipe-dream from one of Muskies mushroom trips.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Re: First time?

You expect the Americans to read a history book?

"Shh. The game's on..." *drool*

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Americans to read a history book?

MAGA, aka, Fox News and Florida GOP, have new books with alternative history.

These books are full of alternative facts [tm] about the people of America and their history.

[big_D]

Re: July 4th?

I want to work for the Turing Cops... But I'm not going up to Freeside and Villa Straylight, no way, no how!

[that one in the corner]

GSA to operate like a software startup

Remind me, what are the most common fates for a software startup?

Something about burning through huge amounts of money, then either vanishing entirely without ever releasing anything or being bought out by another company (often followed by the product vanishing).

And a teeny, tiny number of them go on to become successful, can stand up in their own and are still around a few years later. Of course, those aren't the "winners" because the whole point of the entrepreneur startup lifestyle is to activate your "exit strategy" and drop the whole icky "I have a business to run" as fast as possible. If it turns out to be a viable enterprise but not one that can make you an instant billionaire then you are a bit stuck.

So is Mr Shedd aiming his startup mentality at creating a dull but efficient GSA or is he intending to pivot[1] and produce a GSA that he can IPO and sell of to a Chinese[2] multinational?

[1] I have no idea what that means, but all the techbros seems to want to do it.

[2] well, at least it would swing the trade deficit a bit - and who else would want to buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: GSA to operate like a software startup

"Pivot¹ [1] I have no idea what that means, but all the techbros seems to want to do it."

The dictionary has for the verb "to twist or turn "; the twisting sounds about right for those shysters.

An empirical definition might have "to firmly grasp the loot, turning on one's heels and effecting an expeditious departure."

Any ressemblance to the modus operandi of a smash and grab merchant is incidental intentional.

[doublelayer]

Re: GSA to operate like a software startup

In the startup dictionary, pivot means that your original idea is about to crash and burn, so before that happens, you lose all your money, and your company is shutting down, you quickly find some new thing to do and start doing that. Some times, it is reasonable, as your new thing will at least use technology you built for the old thing. Sometimes, the new thing is completely unrelated but, by chance, it ends up being a good idea and works out. Most of the time, you are no better at doing the new thing and you crash and burn as expected.

[MachDiamond]

Re: GSA to operate like a software startup

1. Cool sounding idea for a thing

2. ???

2A. Different cool sounding idea

2B. Different cool sounding idea

3. IPO

The something that gets left out is testing if the idea has any merit, doing some development AND THEN burying oneself in investor debt.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Big Orange is watching you

"CONSOLE will allow agencies to monitor AI usage at their agencies in real time to see how employees are using tools and which ones they prefer. "

I suspect this is what this is all about: Total Real Time Controll over every state agent and civil servant.

Seeing real-time what every civil servant is doing and what they are doing and deciding. A panopticon for every state servant.

And this is why they need AI. There is no human intelligence in Big Orange's administration.

It is certainly a valid question to ask whether this is safe and secure?

What do you think? They couldn't even keep these plans private in GitHub. Why would the implementation be any better?

[Cruachan]

Re: The Big Orange is watching you

At this point they're too arrogant to care. Project 2025 leaked before the election, Trump still won and despite his denials of knowing anything about it (which were probably true in his case unless they made a video of it for him to watch) most of the things in it are being implemented.

And if it all goes wrong, which it probably will, blame Biden.

[Grunchy]

A.I. Shovelware

A.I.needs to be everywhere, first of all because it’s worthless, but second because it is an inherently “intelligent” agent that is even more powerful at inferring information about you that could lead to anything from sales commissions to valuable data leaks.

Also: A.I. is inherently malevolent, check Sky News’ shocking anecdote.

(Reporter questions chat GPT, gets led down a baffling gaslight corridor.)

https://youtu.be/7fej5XgfBYQ

(Hallucination or malevolence? It’s hard to tell!)

[ecofeco]

Re: A.I. Shovelware

To quote Margret Atwood, "When you look at the results, stupidity and evil are the same."

But how it could it be anything else but? Tech douche bros are tech douche bros and modern AI is a DIRECT creation of... tech douche bros. (and a real slap in the face to the OG masters from Dartmouth)

The rebellious teen years are going to be hell... on earth. Literally.

[MachDiamond]

Re: A.I. Shovelware

"To quote Margret Atwood, "When you look at the results, stupidity and evil are the same.""

The results might look the same, but the intent is quite different.

Don't associate with those that are evil or stupid. Hire people that aren't evil or stupid even if they tick the quota boxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's thieves all the way down

This is,at it's roots, theft.

Misappropriation of tax dollars into the pockets of the tech bros.

[ecofeco]

Re: It's thieves all the way down

I feel like "misappropriation" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here and is FAR too lenient.

I prefer more succinct words, like theft and stealing and fraud.

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: It's thieves all the way down

Don't forget the mass exporting of databases. The data's worth a LOT of money.

Big Balls and his little friends went for the databases as soon as they entered the buildings.

[Potemkine!]

Usage example

RFK Jr.’s health report shows how AI slips fake studies into research

[frankvw]

Well, in all fairness...

One of the current mainstream AIs could probably do a better job in the White House than the present encumbrance. Handing the reigns over to, say, ChatGPT would certainly not be worse than what we're seeing now.

[gosand]

Re: Well, in all fairness...

Fair point. ChatGPT hallucinates far less often.

[Mishak]

which ones they prefer

Will the report also count those who prefer not to use AI?

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: which ones they prefer

Yes. Those workers preferring not to use AI will then be purged as "outmoded and ineffective."

[Snowy]

Plot of a film

I'm sure this was the plot of some terminator film.

[Randy Hudson]

17.3% Svelte in the repo. Only the best 22 year olds for Trump

[Bartholomew]

Missing script pages from Idiocracy

I often wondered how everything went so bad so fast, using AI explains why it all went downhill in such a short time. Garbage in, ten times Garbage out, rinse and repeat with new garbage.

Sponsored by "Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator" - Brawndo has what plants crave! It's got electrolytes!

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

AI promoted by the Trump Admin?

Stupid in = tragically stupid out.

[MachDiamond]

Re: AI promoted by the Trump Admin?

"Stupid in = tragically stupid out."

An enshitifiation machine/system/app?