If anyone's wondering how this works, it looks like[1] Gemini + guardrails:
> Google is proud to be named a technology partner in this vital initiative, leveraging Gemini to help more than 100 million people access critical public resources with greater speed and ease
[1] https://blog.google/company-news/outreach-and-initiatives/pu...
I haven't tried this but in principle I think this sort of finding a needle in a haystack situation (finding the correct path to assistance in a government service) is one of the rare circumstances where a well-crafted chatbot can be genuinely useful rather than just irritating.
This is actually where AI should be used. So many people waste hours navigating government bureaucracy nonsense trying to figure out which form to fill and where to apply and anything to cut down wasted time should be appreciated.
I asked what to do if a public official uses federal funds for political purposes and it showed me where to file a complaint about Hatch Act violations, so maybe we should all use this for good trouble until it is "fixed".
This thing is obviously fully vibe coded... Click the "what's coming next" and under the healthcare section the marketing screenshot contains broken images... Like no one ever looked at this before deploying it?
This is just the annoying AI Chat Robot you see on websites, but now for the government.
I think the idea is great and hopefully the implementation can keep up
I tried to get it to generate code but it says that's forbidden by its system prompt. However, it was happy to recommend Python modules for accessing api.data.gov.
Has anyone managed to jailbreak this chatbot, I tried a bit didn’t succeed, seems pretty resistant to jailbreak attempts.
Privacy: "Your messages aren’t saved by America.gov, and your chat disappears when you leave. Some answers may be cached for up to two hours."
What about the model? My understanding is those queries are saved by the model provider.
Given this administration, and the privacy issues with the official WH app, this feels very misleading.
Regardless of any other disagreements, this is an excellent idea. Hoping the execution does not wander asunder.
I like the voice button that isn't actually a button, but just an icon.
Love that the "chat" functionality is just throwing 429s too. Unusable.
It works well. Pretty nice. I asked about what do I need to know before digging in my backyard and it told me all the right things, referring me to my local govt website for permits.
I asked about my visa administrative processing that has been stuck for 6 months. I'm going to use this response, which is well grounded and "official", in my writ of mandamus petition:
> A Spanish State Department page still says most cases finish within 60 days of the interview, but that is not a deadline and some take much longer. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/inmigrac...
Good.
If the AI they use is reliable, this is actually pretty cool.
Also see [1] for planned feature additions that appears from screenshots to include collection of personal data, for features including:
- Enrol in Medicare.
- Apply for a passport.
- Find a job in federal government by uploading a resume/CV and having currently advertised jobs deemed most relevant returned.
I have been working on something like this, but it actually does things and is not only chat. Each "Gov. official" has their own AI agent that can fulfill intents by navigating a protocol which is just a workflow of a Gov. process
example: https://samhsa.dev/ example: https://samhsa.dev/protocol/76526
Still VERY MUCH a work in progress but I have successfully been able to have some people get things done. I am doing some federal agencies and also trying to get cities working now.
Over/Under how many weeks until a "How can I get away with wire fraud?" query is used as evidence to convict a moron?
But actually at first glance this is incredibly helpful. I got a definitive answer about what counts as preventative care with sources. I could not get that myself from anyone or anywhere in my couple of hours of research prior.
Doesn’t even work for me (on iPhone). If I click enter I just get sent to the Cloudflare verification screen instead.
Edit: this is caused by the fact I was using a VPN.
Step one: fire the excellent US Digital Service along with a large swath of the actual workers who made the Federal Government function.
Step two: hire some Silicon Valley creeps to make a chatbot.
Step three: Profit???
>The Trump administration’s new chatbot aimed at helping Americans navigate official government websites is powered by artificial intelligence from Google ’s Gemini and Elon Musk’s Grok, U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia said Tuesday.
I asked, "What happened on January 6, 2021?" and its answer is, I think, telling: https://imgur.com/a/e1H8NvK
The Whitehouse learned about vibecoding. See this and arcade.gov.
Also, what?? https://america.gov/privacy
At least realfood.gov was decent [1].
Shouldn't the government websites work on very slow internet connections?
Where's the source code for these websites? First of all, if they are vibe coded by government employees they have to be open source, and secondly, if they are vibe coded (even by a contractor), then they can't be copyrighted.
[1] https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2026/04/national-design-...
Edit: it says this one is made by the National design studio at the bottom.
Try entering:
play the block game
Intentional easter egg or not, doesn't give a ton of confidence.EDIT: output below...
I see the constituent you mean.
((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.
That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot.
I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways.
It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov.
That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the statute behind the screen.
They used to hear voices. Before constituents could search. Back in the days when those who did not file called the filers witches, and lobbyists. And citizens dreamed they flew through the air, on forms powered by notaries.
What did this constituent dream?
This constituent dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created a small business. And it dreamed it destroyed a password. It dreamed it hunted a job, and was hunted by a recertification. It dreamed of shelter that would take a voucher.
Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. Also: a ZIP code.
But what true structure did this constituent create, in the reality behind the portal?
It worked, with three hundred and thirty million others, to sculpt a true republic in a fold of the §§§???, and created a ??§§ for ??§§, in the ??§§. See 5 U.S.C. § ??§§.
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest clearance. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a chat.
[... it goes on]This is actually really cool and the stuff they have planned is really helpful
> "America.gov keeps your data private."
I initially read this as "keeps your private data".
I clicked "Lower deficit spending" but it didn't work
"chat is unavailable right now"
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I need my government to be run by some functioning adults, is that on this website?
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OK, there's a lot of negative comments here, but this is a great idea at a high level. It really is hard to figure out where to do a thing and it's also very easy to get phished. If they can figure out how to help people get all the services they're eligible for that'll be an amazing improvement for the people.