On September 16, just twelve days after Trump hosted a dinner for the leaders of technological monopolies, including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced to its employees that they will now be using ChatGPT for work.
The director of OPM himself, Scott Kupor, was a Silicon Valley executive after working for Andreessen Horowitz (Trump hired a pro-crypto financial regulator, Brian Quintenz, from the same firm). Kupor has made no secret of his preference for the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout his agency.
While he stated that he does not wish for AI to replace human labor, he has expressed an interest in utilizing it for notice and comment. Kupor said, “But we do not need to hand read 40,000 comments that come in on a new rule that we’re proposing.”
Trump and his allies have boasted that they have the most transparent administration in modern history; yet, if one takes the time to make a public comment, an AI rather than a human may read it, likely meaning that the comment will not be taken into account, and it is unable to shape policy. It is the democratic responsibility of OPM to hand read those 40,000 comments.
