Generative AI is meant to automate tasks that government workers previously performed, with a predicted 300,000 job cuts from the federal workforce by the end of the year.
The Trump administration is letting the generative AI chatbots loose.
Federal agencies such as the General Services Administration and the Social Security Administration have rolled out ChatGPT-esque tech for their workers. The Department of Veterans Affairs is using generative AI to write code.
The U.S. Army has deployed CamoGPT, a generative AI tool, to review documents to eliminate references to diversity, equity, and inclusion. More tools are coming down the line. The Department of Education has proposed using generative AI to answer questions from students and families on financial aid and loan repayment.
Generative AI is meant to automate tasks that government workers previously performed, with a predicted 300,000 job cuts from the federal workforce by the end of the year.
But the technology isn’t ready to take on much of this work, says Meg Young, a researcher at Data & Society, an independent nonprofit research and policy institute in New York City.
“We’re in an insane hype cycle,” she says.What does AI do for the American government?
Currently, government chatbots are largely meant for general tasks, such as helping federal workers write e-mails and summarize documents. But you can expect government agencies to give them more responsibilities soon. And in many cases, generative AI is not up to the task.
For example, the GSA wants to use generative AI for tasks related to procurement. Procurement is the legal and bureaucratic process by which the government purchases goods and services from private companies. For example, a government would go through procurement to find a contractor when constructing a new office building.
The procurement process involves lawyers from the government and the company negotiating a contract that ensures that the company abides by government regulations, such as transparency requirements or American Disabilities Act requirements. The contract may also contain what repairs the company is liable for after delivering the product.
It’s unclear that generative AI will speed up procurement, according to Young. It could, for example, make it easier for government employees to search and summarize documents, she says. But lawyers may find generative AI too error-prone to use in many of the steps in the procurement process, which involve negotiations over large amounts of money. Generative AI may even waste time.
Lawyers have to carefully vet the language in these contracts. In many cases, they have already agreed on the accepted wording.
“If you have a chatbot generating new terms, it’s creating a lot of work and burning a lot of legal time,” says Young.
