DOGE spelled backwards
By James N. Weiss, MD
I was scrolling through Youtube the other day when an ad appeared from a financial consultant hawking a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity, claiming that Elon Musk was about to launch a new business enterprise that would add trillions to the economy, more than Telsa, SpaceX and all of his other companies combined, and now was the time to get in early if you want to become a multimillionaire. Suddenly, it hit me. The whole Musk-Trump bromance embodied in the newly-established “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) that Musk now leads makes complete sense.
Think about it. Trump’s goal is to extend his executive power as President to give him total control over the US government and its policies. With Congress neutralized by his hold over the Republican Party majority, and the Supreme Court neutralized by his appointment of conservative justices willing to do his bidding, he is well on his way to accomplishing this objective. The only remaining challenge he faces is ridding the federal bureaucracy (the so-called “deep state”) of those employees who place the rule-of-law and the US constitution above their allegiance to Trump.
On the other side of the equation, Musk, the world’s richest entrepreneur, finds himself behind in the techbro race to develop and profit from the most exciting and revolutionary technology of the 21st center – generative AI. This advanced AI technology, which is now rapidly approaching the realization of artificial general intelligence (fully equivalent to human level intelligence) and eventually artificial super-intelligence (vastly superior to human level intelligence) is predicted to revolutionize the global economy by replacing the need for human intelligence and decision-making in most, if not all, economic sectors. (Note Musk’s recent unsuccessful bid to leapfrog to the head of the AI pack with his recent $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI).
For both Trump and Musk, then, DOGE is a marriage made in heaven. Both argue that the federal bureaucracy is bloated, inefficient, and that the roles of many federal employees can be replaced by AI, thus justifying the mass firings implemented by DOGE, especially in departments that provide regulatory oversight of the private sector. From Trump’s perspective, DOGE allows him, through Musk, to decimate departments and agencies that oppose his political agenda, and replace his opponents with Trump loyalists. From Musk’s perspective, in addition to reducing regulatory oversight of his current businesses, his DOGE leadership position suddenly catapults himself over his AI techbro competitors by giving him privileged access to develop the AI applications designated by DOGE to remake the federal bureaucracy. No doubt this will be paid for by federal contracts to Musk-controlled interests, the same financial strategy that Musk has relied on to build his other companies like Tesla and Space-X, but on a potentially much larger scale. So DOGE is not about “President Musk” taking advantage of a mentally-failing elderly President. It’s a very savvy collaboration between two power-hungry narcissists who are scratching each other’s backs.
I am sure that both Trump and Musk are confident that if their DOGE strategy works, they will be able to control the AI algorithms as they progressively evolve to take over administering more and more functions of the federal government (while brazenly ignoring the obvious conflicts-of-interest in order to further concentrate their own power and wealth). Perhaps in the long run, a government functionally administered by advanced AI to maximize its efficiency will be a transformative advance in human governance that other nations around the world will emulate, whether they are democracies or autocracies. In this sunny scenario, future generations might view Trump and Musk as visionary pioneers who transformed human societies for the better, despite their all-consuming thirst for power and wealth.
However, there is also a huge risk. For human civilization to benefit from advanced AI-assisted governance requires that values of the AI algorithms controlling human society remain aligned with human values. This is what worries AI researchers the most – that as advanced AI algorithms evolve and transition to general and super intelligence, they may well become self-aware and develop values and goals of their own that are misaligned with those of the much less intelligent creatures that originally created them. If so, how can we ensure that anyone would still be able to pull the plug?
For Americans, then, the key question is the following: do you trust Trump and Musk to embark on this adventure to develop and implement AI algorithms in a cautious, safe and responsible manner, especially when they are committed to weakening government oversight by firing most inspector generals and down-sizing or eliminating many regulatory agencies that protect public safety? Isn’t a bit reckless to test out potentially self-aware advanced AI programs on government programs whose interconnected computer systems store the personal data of all American citizens, control the federal payment system, and manage state secrets, national security and defense, including nuclear codes?
In case you haven’t noticed, DOGE spelled backwards is e-GOD. A Freudian slip by Trump and Musk? That’s what a government run by self-aware artificial superintelligence aligned to its own values and goals could turn into. Is that a risk you are willing to take? How would this new e-GOD overlord treat the second most intelligent beings on the earth? Create a utopia for us? A dystopia? Or just exterminate us for all the trouble we’ve caused on planet Earth? Instead, how about We The People exile Trump and Musk to Mars on a Space-X rocket and call it a day, before it’s too late?