Chatbots are notoriously sources of misinformation and false confidence, so surely imbuing one with the authority of the federal government won’t cause any problems, right? 404 Media spotted a GitHub repository that shows the Trump administration is working on its very own chatbot that appears set to eventually launch on its own website, AI.gov.
According to 404 Media’s findings, AI.gov appears to be the work of the US General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, which is curently being run by Thomas Shedd. He’s a former Tesla engineer who was identified by the New York Times as an ally of Elon Musk, who was appointed to the role of director of GSA’s tech arm. In audio of a leaked meeting published by 404 Media, Shedd can be heard pushing for AI integration across the government.
While AI.gov currently redirects to the White House’s landing page, a version of the site that 404 Media uncovered reveals some details about the project, including the mission to “Accelerate government innovation with AI.” The project appears to include a chatbot, though details are vague on what exactly that bot will be able to do. It also shows plans to launch an API that will integrate with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Code from the project suggests they are also working on integrations with Amazon Web Services’ Bedrock and Meta’s LLaMA.
While the project appears pretty bare bones at the moment, there is a pretty ambitious launch schedule. Per 404 Media, the GitHub code shows that the project displays a planned launch date of July 4, which is certainly one way to celebrate Independence Day. If all goes to plan, well, as the tagline to Roland Emmerich’s 1996 masterpiece Independence Day goes, “We’ve always believed we weren’t alone. On July 4th, we’ll wish we were.”
The embrace of AI shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, even if the project itself is relatively ill-defined at this point. Earlier this year, as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency were unceremoniously firing federal employees at the General Services Administration, it launched a chatbot that was supposed to help the remaining agency members with their tasks.
That project was reportedly in the works before the DOGE team rushed it out the door, presumably in an attempt to compensate for all the labor that was cut from the agency. The AI.gov project appears to be something newly concocted by Shedd and the team that remains at GSA’s tech team. Given all that could go wrong with a chatbot, rushing it out the door doesn’t seem like the safest or smartest idea in the world, but hey, they’re the experts, right?
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