AI: Making A Road Map of the Corruption
DOGE may have longer term effects than people realize
I am seeing a lot of anger about Elon Musk and DOGE on social media. But there was a 100% chance that someone was going to turn an AI loose on the government records some time soon. This was coming. Microsoft, Amazon and others were in the running to have their AI doing this, he just beat them to it, so getting mad at him and the people working with him doing it is pointless. The records are huge, and someone was going to start an AI correlation on all those records. Now the long-term effects are going to have to be dealt with.
This AI of his is making some mistakes, though fewer than what many people are saying, from what I can see. It is learning from those mistakes too, as it is designed to do. The people reading what it is telling them, however, are making a lot more mistakes themselves and not learning from them nearly as much. They are the ones picking and choosing what gets made public and picking and choosing which ones to act on according to what they want to accomplish. One of those top priorities will be exposing those trying to stop them, and those that get them the best PR.
But the tool itself is uncovering graft, massive amounts of inefficiencies, mislabeled payout, and outright frauds going on that are inherent in this type of bureaucratic set up. And there is a lot of that. Low ball estimate say one in ten dollars spend is on graft and such, and others say it is three out of every four dollars is payoffs to lobbyist, graft and such. The number is somewhere in between and very largely a matter of how you define it. Most of the DC, elected, and bureau management, have stock or sit on boards getting those monies. Many of them have helped friends and family into those same positions. The AI is showing that up. The state department, CIA and the military have been using funding for other project to fund operations overseas. But in all these cases, you cannot shut out the graft and illegal use without also shutting down needed projects, by design.
The current solution is to shut them down; then to restart the needed projects without those built in grafts. But what those needed ones are is up for heated debate. Furthermore, by tying them into projects that congress mandated get done, those shutdowns can be challenged in court and the court can and will force the graft payment to restart in many cases. But this isn’t stopping the AI from finding them. Nor is it stopping the misuse of this information. Musk and Co have allies on the take, too.
Nor can all of that corruption be shut down. It is built into far too much of the needed infrastructure, by design, and shutting it down would shatter the US. But this AI is giving him a great road map of where it all is. He is the first, but he will not be the last that uses an AI on those records, though many in congress are scrambling to try to prevent it from happening. Congress has little chance of succeeding. Trump and Musk are going to pick and choose what corruption they are going to shut down. And the next guy elected with either get that road map or just use another next generation AI to build his own even better map of who is on the take for what. That is a very dangerous power to have, and to what end each person elected will use it for is anyone’s guess. But there is no magic silver bullet that will slay the AI wolf. At best, congress and take on reforms that give it less to work on. But doing so cuts off a lot of the funding and personal infrastructure they are dependent on to get reelected.
An impeachment of Trump is likely out of the question too. That road map means he can get criminal indictments on most members of congress if push comes to shove. After so many using the courts against him, that may well be part of why Trump is building that road map. Succeed or fail, DOGE isn’t the game changer, it is using that AI to do sift those records that will be in the long run. Nor did Trump in company originate that idea, they just beat others to it. And many of the same people angry at Trump would have been right on board with their team using that tool.
That map can lead to a lot more blackmail making things worse, or a slow and painful weeding out of the corruption over the years to come. Which it will be, we are about to find out.