alt Hacker NewsDOGE Bro's Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT 'Is This DEI?'
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def accept_grant(application):
return random.choice([True, False])It sounds like they stupidly did exactly what was stupidly expected.
I wonder what the economic cost of DOGE basing policy entirely on whether something is DEI or not. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
> We’ve mentioned Cavanaugh here before, for the time when he was head of the US Institute for Peace, and Elon and DOGE falsely labeled a guy who had worked for USIP a member of the Taliban, causing the actual Taliban to kidnap the guy’s family.
Sorry for the OT, but... what on earth?
That's going to be another big problem with AI. The same problem they have with developers.
Management: "We need to do X"
AI does X
Management: "It's not working"
AI: what do you mean? It does exactly what you asked.
Management: "I wanted it to do Y, and that's how you do it" (with Y having nothing to do with X whatsoever)
AI: ...
Management: I'm hiring the developers back ...
We're going to look back at the second Grump admin as what happens when society enthusiastically embraces ego-stroking hallucinations - from "magic computer" LLMs, hollow TV personalities, and of course good old combative dementia.
Ironically... ChatGPT having such a positive attractor basin for DEI probably widened the net here tremendously.
Can we please put these guys on trial for malfeasance?!??!?
My guess is this will garner attention for use of AI — that's where my attention went as well initially. But there's another layer to this, which is whether a grant should be terminated just because it pertains to DEI, regardless of AI being involved or not.
My guess is you couldn't get a roomful of experts to agree on what "DEI" means; I doubt AI could do better, and even if it could, I'm not sure I'd want that to be the determining factor about whether it would get funded. To the extent it was, I'm not sure it would be a bad thing.