AI and DOGE Combine to Create Social Scoring System
Privacy rules ignored as DOGE team installs own server in the White House, using it to consolidate what had been separate data silos protected by privacy regulations
By John P. Desmond, Editor, AI in Business
When Elon Musk’s DOGE team moved into the White House, the speculation was about what the role of AI would be in finding efficiencies in how the federal government operates. Now, after several months, the thinking is Musk and DOGE have put a social scoring system in place to serve the aims of an administration that a federal judge recently characterized as “wholly lawless.”
The hints were there in the beginning of the DOGE reign. In a lawsuit filed on January 27, two federal workers sued to have the server disconnected, maintaining it is a violation of many security requirements in place, including a mandatory privacy impact statement. The judge initially denied the injunction, but the case continues.
According to an account in Wired, the motion filed argued “that the server’s continued operation not only violates federal law but is potentially exposing vast quantities of government staffers’ personal information to hostile foreign adversaries through unencrypted email.”
The suit alleged the purpose of the server tied to the government network was “harvesting information, including the names and emails of federal employees,” the Wired account stated. ‘The email account linked to the server–HR@opm.gov–was used to send the “Fork in the Road” email to every federal government employee, which the Administration described as a “deferred resignation program.”
Unprecedented “Seizure” of Private Data Seen
“We are witnessing an unprecedented exfiltration and seizure of the most sensitive kinds of information by unelected, unvetted people with no experience, responsibility, or right to it,” stated Sean Vitka, policy director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, in the Wired account. The organization is supporting the suit. “Millions of Americans and the collective interests of the United States desperately need emergency intervention from the courts. The constitutional crisis is already here.”
An account in The New York Times on February 3, described how the Musk team was evaluating how to use AI to identify budget cuts and detect waste and abuse. Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer appointed by the new administration to head technology efforts at the General Services Administration, told some staffers that AI would be a key part of their cost-reduction work, according to the Times account. At the agency, some staffers have been informed that they will be expected to cut 50 percent of its budget.
The GSA was housing the Technology Transformation Services, then, a group of roughly 700 technologists that the DOGE team saw as a source of engineering talent. The unit has since been substantially cut.
Many suits have been filed to challenge the administration’s right to access personal data on many (if not all) Americans, without proper permission
On March 20, Maryland federal judge Ellen Hollander imposed a temporary restraining order to prevent DOGE from accessing sensitive systems within the Social Security Administration (SSA) that contain Americans' personal information, according to an account in Newsweek. This case was brought by groups including the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers.
In the ruling, Judge Hollander accused DOGE of launching a "fishing expedition" that could jeopardize privacy. "The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion," the judge stated. "It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack."
Subsequently, in a 2-1 decision, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay issued by Judge Hollander, clearing the way for DOGE to obtain data from the Treasury Department, Education Department, and the Office of Personnel Management.
Federal Workforce Reductions Substantial
Workforce reductions imposed by the DOGE efficiency efforts have been substantial. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office, potentially firing more than 1,000 scientists and employees. The IRS plans to reduce its workforce by about 18,000 employees (20 percent), while the Postal Service announced 10,000 job cuts, according to the Newsweek account.
Elsewhere, the Department of Education plans to lay off more than 1,300 employees; the Department of Veterans Affairs is planning a reorganization that includes cutting 80,000 jobs; and the Pentagon is planning to cut 50,000 to 60,000 civilian positions, Newsweek reported.
Moreover, at least 24,000 probationary workers had been terminated since President Donald Trump took office, according to a lawsuit filed by nearly 20 states alleging these mass firings are illegal. Two federal judges ordered 19 federal agencies to reinstate probationary workers who were fired. Additionally, about 75,000 federal workers accepted offers to quit in return for receiving pay and benefits until September 30.
DOGE has said its efforts have saved the federal government an estimated $140 billion as of April. Musk had initially said his goal was to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, but backtracked in January, saying there was a "good shot" of trimming half that amount, according to the Newsweek account.
AI Seen Making Bureaucracy Worse
A recent account in Truthout was headlined, “AI Isn’t Going to Cut Government Bureaucracy – It’s Going to Vastly Worsen it.”
Writer Ulises A. Mejias stated, “We are now witnessing the creation of what I would call artificial bureaucratic intelligence (ABI). ABI is emerging as an autonomous agent dedicated to the rigid and mindless implementation of administrative procedure. As thousands of government workers are dismissed from their jobs, it appears that the plan is to replace them with some form of ABI, which will act as the interface between government (or what’s left of it) and the public.”
Mejias is a professor of communication studies at SUNY Oswego, and coauthor with Nick Couldry of “Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back,” (Chicago University Press).
Our most private data is protected by many privacy regulations, making it a challenge for ABI to deliver. Majias writes, “However, a new solution has recently been attempted: Why not let the richest oligarch in the world simply take control of government data, in the name of efficiency? As we have seen in the last few weeks, Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” has been engaged in a digital coup that involves the capture of entire government data systems.”
He sees this evolving into a social credit system along the lines of what has been implemented in China.
“This unholy alliance between government and corporations points to what ABI is on the verge of becoming: a social credit system created by Big Tech (Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft etc.) and sinister tech (Palantir, Clearview AI etc.), fed with our data, and used by the government to carry out its far right agenda.”
CEOs, pundits and academics in the US have been critical for years of China for developing a social credit system, “a unified national mechanism for treating people according to the data that is collected from them. It now seems the U.S. is on its way to developing such a system overnight.”
Implementers of the DOGE social credit system can type in “identify pro-Hamas students” and then “generate deportation cases for those students,” to get a list. “Accuracy — which is not AI’s forte — is not the goal,” Majias stated.
See the source articles and information in Wired, in The New York Times, in Newsweek and in Truthout.