> And they have “heavily” deployed Musk’s Grok AI chatbot – an aspiring ChatGPT rival – as part of their work slashing the federal government, said that person. Reuters could not establish exactly how Grok was being used.
Grok is FIPS complaint, right? Safe for use with confidential information? PII/PHI?
Because ofcourse they do... But really, what is the way to be biggest AI company ever, eclipsing palantir and openai? Yeah, make sure the US and other govs believing they cannot function without anymore. I see where Musk is going, but like his self driving cars, he is always just not quite there yet. And this is even more dangerous than self driving cars that suck.
I am a bit like him; when I make something, I see the end goal clearly and tell people like it's already there, almost, but it doesn't exist yet and takes years to do. Difference is, I sit in my garden in my underpants, he stands ranting in the white house.
I'm sure one of the biggest eventual use cases of AI will be surveillance at scale. If that's the case, how enthusiastic are you be about AI as a technology?
Yes. Surveillance because his weird organization doesn’t fit anywhere in actual org charts and its unclear who plays oversight for it or handles its data security, and because AI is notoriously prone to hallucinations and shouldn’t be used deterministically.
It's pretty sparse with details and could just be speculation, but it sounds like "sentiment analysis at scale". Traditional monitoring would be keywords or manual oversight, the former being ineffective and the latter being labour intensive. Having AI monitoring every communication for wrong-think, where wrong-think is simply arguing against a direction or initiative, is...novel.
There is something rather interesting in Trumpism where everyone has to fall in line in ways never, ever seen before. The dictator dictates and everyone else starts parroting. There is incredible danger if no one in government is allowed to express disagreement.
There is no expectation of privacy but there is a need for rules and oversight. Some communications are sensitive - anything involving lawyers, unions, health providers, etc. has legal considerations - and there is both a concern about whether government data is being shared improperly with third-party companies. For example, if they’re using Grok to analyze text, there’s potentially a huge conflict of interest if any of the communications being analyzed involves regulation of Musk’s companies or the various lawsuits he’s part of.
Similarly, since they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics you have questions like whether an EPA official whose messages are flagged will have a human review the alleged offenses or be given a chance to defend their actions, or simply be “randomly” included in some RIF. We haven’t had to think about that since the McCarthy / lavender scare era, which significantly predated modern surveillance technology.
Since DOGE is widely reported to be using Signal and private email servers, there is reason to question whether those ethical standards will be followed.
> shared improperly with third-party companies. For example, if they’re using Grok to analyze text, there’s potentially a huge conflict of interest if any of the communications being analyzed involves regulation of Musk’s companies or the various lawsuits he’s part of.
I don't think this is a problem anymore - hasn't he already cancelled anybody who was investigating him? I assume anybody who wants to keep their job knows to look the other way at this point.
>> why would it be bad for federal workers to be surveilled? is there an expectation of privacy while you're working?
> they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics
I think that gets to the heart of the matter: what is the purpose of the surveillance? In this case, it appears to be to root out people who have wrongthink about the leaders, e.g.
> Musk’s team is rolling out AI to monitor workers, including looking for language in communications considered hostile to Trump or Musk
Hostility to Trump or Musk is what you want, if they're pushing to do something illegal or unethical.
which foreign entity are you referring to? and was this unelected entity appointed by an elected one? Federal judges in the USA are unelected and some have a foreign background. Are you against them too?
You don't have to assume I'm American. But yeah, the officials that interpret law at the highest level should absolutely be democratically elected. Why would that even be some sort of gotcha?
And even if one can argue whether those count as foreign entities as in other countries, they're certainly foreign to the US government, since this is quite novel BS.
Sure (although Trump's legitimacy to be in the position to do this kind of stuff is also suspect, but that's just me looking from across the Atlantic) but that doesn't make things necessarily legitimate.
Musk being in a position to do this due to Trump appointment doesn't imply that this ought to be a case, or that this is proper. Thus critique.
Why is Trump suspect? This is the same argument made last time by Trumps side. He's legitimate, since there are no rules not allowing him (he's a natural citizen and well old enough), thus meeting all requirements. Is he a proper choice? No, but neither side offered any proper choice in a meaningful time and thus failed our nation.
And has strict limits as to their authority which don't appear to be being followed. Is he the head of DOGE or isn't he? Depends on if it's a reporter or a judge asking.
Funny because everyone was stating his role in a way that doesn't fit that definition in public, but then changed to fit the definition when required in court.
I have no problem with surveillance of federal workers on their job sites, per se. I say this as a federal worker. (Edited for clarity.)
As others have mentioned, there are two legitimate concerns here:
(1) Civil servants are heavily trained on the laws restricting use and access to certain information. There's reasonable doubt that DOGE and/or Trump will uphold those laws with these systems additional surveillance systems in place.
(2) This administration has proven itself incompetent and criminal regarding HR activities. Civil servants can reasonably wonder if this will further those dysfunctions.
OK. For the rest, we have elections and in the interim contact your congresspeople. Believe it or not, some percent of the country supports these actions, so the only solution is to remove them through the democratic process and put pressure on elected officials to hold them accountable.
According to one of the most prescient of all fictional depictions of the future, Deus Ex, the first human-level, agentic AI was used by the puppet masters behind the US government to monitor all of Internet traffic for signs of “terrorism” (yes, this was before 9/11). Problem is, the instructions given to the AI caused it classify the puppeteers themselves as a terrorist organization.
Grok has already publicly claimed that Elon was trying to illegally sway the election in Wisconsin with his million dollar prizes for votes. Did anything happen in Deus Ex? I'm guessing the government was held more accountable there than they will be in reality.
> Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that Elon Musk's DOGE team of technologists is using artificial intelligence to surveil at least one federal agency’s communications for hostility to President Donald Trump and his agenda, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
I think its entirely reasonable for an employer to monitor employee communications on company media channels. I've dealt with a few toxic employees in the past where their incessant complaining and passive sabotage of work is incredibly harmful to morale and work of others.
I don't really see how using AI is controversial other than it's being done more efficiently, flagging just blatant violations. Seems preferable and more respectful of privacy that having an employee read all communications manually and applying judgement.
This comment bothers me a lot. It seems like you have a view that companies are at war with their pesky employees, and need to use whatever means to squash any bad apples.
Companies should be a place where people earn a livelyhood and contribute to society. They should feel safe at work and able to freely communicate any suggestions or complaints they have.
I want to feel safe at work and feel like I'm contributing to the mission of the company. Then log off and live my life.
I don't want politics discussed at work, it's annoying and a distraction. I don't want people badmouthing their job or work or company. All of these behaviors are toxic and I would guess 80% of people are like me.
That's what "feeling safe at work" means to me. Just mission focused. Happy hour is a different story, but at least with that you can choose to go and who to chat with.
> I don't want politics discussed at work, it's annoying and a distraction
This would be a ridiculous expectation if you were working for the federal government. Politics affect your work to an extreme level there. Not discussing politics at all is not discussing your job.
> I don't want people badmouthing their job or work or company. All of these behaviors are toxic and I would guess 80% of people are like me.
If your company was involved in something really bad, you'd rather just not know? If you worked for Theranos, Nikola, or Enron, you'd rather be able to continue on with your nose down than know what's going on?
I want to know the truth about my company. I don't want to be complicit in crimes or things that I consider unconscionable, and I don't consider willing ignorance a good excuse for partaking in unethical or illegal activity.
> I don't want politics discussed at work, it's annoying and a distraction.
This is a lot trickier when politics won’t stay out of your work. For example, almost every business is affected by the tariffs because such a massive tax increase affects almost everyone. On the article’s topic, someone at the EPA hired for professional skills around pollution, climate change, etc. under the current administration will regularly be faced with the choice between denying reality/law and being seen as political.
Some things really are bad, and "badmouthing" and pointing that out can be a productive thing. Thinking that anything that is against the "mission of the company" is toxic is a stance that I do not share.
It feels like your opinion is "boss is always right, just do what they say" (I apologize if I'm misreading that). The truth is that bosses are often wrong and need to be corrected.
Has an LLM ever gotten something wrong in your experience? Now imagine you get fired because the magic autocomplete machine randomly decided that something you said had a bad vibe
I don't think an LLM has access to payroll or authority to fire anyone. It just flags and people review. Have you worked in a large organization? Have you ever had to fire anyone, or tried to get someone fired? It's not easy.
As of April 1, 2025, approximately 60,000 federal employees have been forcibly terminated or laid off as part of the Trump administration's workforce reduction efforts. These terminations primarily targeted probationary employees—those hired, promoted, or transferred within the last year—who lack full civil service protections.
There are about 3m employees so this is about 2%.
This is pretty normal course of business for most organizations. Meta laid off 13% of workers in 2022-2023 and an additional 5% in 2025. Other tech companies did similar numbers.
You normally want to keep the people you promote. You also normally want to keep the people you transferred to that new important project you spun up.
They reason they fired this specific classification is because it was easier to, not because there was any justification to fire them. I thought above you said it's hard to fire people without reason?
Yes and no – nearly half federal government's actual workforce is contractors, and contracts have been cancelled en masse. Here is data from 2017 -- the percentage is nearly 40%.
The issue is, probationary in Gov doesn't mean what it means in Corporate speak. They do actually have most of the same protections which he ignored illegally.
This is pathetic. In the US, nearly everyone is an "At will" employee. It cannot be legally easy to fire someone.
You can fire your employees because you don't like their shirt. Do you understand that? There is NO REQUIRED REASON to fire nearly anyone in the US.
Meanwhile, for non-at-will employees like federal employees, all you need is "cause", in other words, a bullshit couple "bad" reviews or a PIP or similar.
Do you know why governments don't usually fire people? Because they don't exactly have the most productive employees lining up to work for below market rates.
The government doesn't fire workers because whoever you replace them with (if you even can at all) will likely be just as bad or worse. It's not because "It's hard" and I'm so sick of the whining.
Trump isn't their employer and the whole narrative that they "report" to him is an executive order-based fiction. The departments are supposed to be independent, some wildly more than others, and the heads of the department control them and set the agenda.
I don't know, anytime I read anything like this it's a whack a mole.
> Trump / Doge / Musk is snooping
It's pretty normal to monitor communication channels
> for anti Trump / Elon communication
It's pretty normal to have informal speech codes at work, which include don't un-constructively criticize your employer or parent company.
> using AI
Okay, it just does what humans do except more efficiently
> but the AI is not compliant to some regulation
I don't know and I don't think you know either
> but they don't "report" to him
They're still part of the federal government. Again, I don't think its unreasonable and its certainly not productive
At a certain point I realize there aren't any real objections other than [orange | rocket] man bad.
There's a lot to criticize with this administration but criticizing absolutely everything, even when its entirely reasonable, doesn't help sway people's opinions. So when people read hysterical headlines about how the federal government is spying on federal employees by accessing their pay information, they just tune out.
The executive branch is really not supposed to have complete unrestrained control over the entire federal government.
The point about AI isn't about efficiency, it's about accountability. This administration already has a huge accountability problem, and the AI is another layer of "Oh, that wasn't really me who did that thing I did." This isn't just cynicism, the current admin is incapable of taking responsibility for anything they've done wrong (and perfectly willing to take full responsibility for things other people have done right).
I don't know where I stand on this, but not everyone thinks that 100% on-task, uncritical, 0 conflict communication is essential or even normal for work.
It reminds me of an article that claimed Britain has become a more civil and less honest place in the last few decades. (The Economist, maybe?) Perhaps some workplaces are like that too. Whether it's a good thing or not, who knows. People clearly have their preference one way or the other.
This specific case is tied to complicated American politics, but I guess small versions of the same debate are happening in workplaces all over the world. Though maybe, ironically, not in the most intensely policed workplaces.
Do you think AI is hooked up to the their entire infra where they can act as an agent, file disciplinary complaints, put people on performance plans, etc?
Given the spectacular, mind-blowing incompetence of almost everything they've done so far, I 100% absolutely believe that they would automatically send out dismissals based upon a sentiment analysis flag.
So they're incompetent but can integrate an LLM to their entire human resources management, payroll, and administration system in a few months? Makes sense.
Yes, the people who have repeatedly fired vast numbers of critical people[1] and then begged for them to come back are outrageously incompetent. The people who keep posting laughably wrong values on their "savings", and who are cancelling contracts they actually can't, contracts that are critical, or contracts that ended years ago are spectacularly incompetent.
Hamfisting some AI bullshit to try to gangbang the government with Elon's own little AI creation isn't some massive undertaking, and I assume you must be new to this industry or something to think it is.
[1] Current estimates of DOGE firings are in the range of 280,000 employees, not the 60k the other guy keeps claiming. And they've fired critical, hugely valuable employees repeatedly (nuclear safety, bird flu remediation, etc), seemingly having no idea what they do or how they do it. They just manufacture a BS cause, including claiming people who haven't even started are being fired for performance reasons, and automate mass firings.
As of April 1, 2025, approximately 60,000 federal employees have been forcibly terminated or laid off as part of the Trump administration's workforce reduction efforts. These terminations primarily targeted probationary employees—those hired, promoted, or transferred within the last year—who lack full civil service protections.
There are about 3m employees so this is about 2%. 2% is not vast.
In every situation like this, always contemplate how the reception would be if the other side did it.
Like, we know the "but her emails" thing was the greatest example of bloviated hypocrisy in human history. This government has absolutely obliterated information security norms, and suddenly all of those fake concerns dissolved. Similarly there was a week-long outrage about Biden looking at his watch during a fallen servicemember repatriation. Trump didn't even show up to four fallen soldiers -- didn't even know about them almost a day later, presumably because to him they're suckers and losers -- and went golfing instead. Not a peep.
So if the Biden admin deployed an AI sentiment analysis that flagged and then fired any civil servant anywhere in the masses of government who went against any of their decrees, would you say "well that's their employer and they're toxic"? Really?
Seems like legacy media is not pretending anymore and has transitioned into make-believe land after CNBCs airing of "unconfirmed information" about tariff pause only 1 day ago.
The number one rule in tech, if you aren't paying you are being manipulated and someone else has the power behind the seen. I'd rather the un-elected people with great control over my government WERE paid by the government. It should scare you that government manipulation/control is the product and we don't know who it is sold to.
The problem with that assertion is that workers are not interchangeable commodities. Background maters.
Your example assumes that most unpaid people are your avg bureaucrat salarymen, looking to pay mortages, with expensive side mistresses etc. But these are not the workers we are talking about. Here are often tech millionaires that made their money actually selling things people found enticing.
For them, the extra dollar is just a small marginal gain on their life. Whereas for the average salaryman you are referring, money is a matter of actually having food of the table.
Unfortunately bad faith actors also use "anonymous sources," to push agendas that aren't exactly an accurate representation of what's going on. The FBI and CIA are notorious for this.
Example. "Anonymous sources in the CIA said..." That's a leak but not a real leak. You can tell because if it was a real leak, the government would track them down like Snowden.
That being said, this is clearly _not_ the FBI or the CIA. The power dynamics for anyone saying anything critical of the Trump administration in the media are strongly, strongly not in their favor.
Right but I'm saying in general stories using nothing but anonymous sources should be held with a higher level of skepticism than ones with documented sources or even corroborating anonymous sources. This doesn't seem to have either.
>>>>Without it, you’re really just a conduit for press releases.
Thats arguably what the press has been doing for the CIA in the last decade more or less.
>>> hold on, are you expecting them to name their sources? On this? Really?
Yes. edward snowden went against the security state. its not far fetched to expect more transparency over a simple govt policy related to an agency that is under the microscope (DOGE)
Particularly when trust in media is an all all time low
Particularly because of behavior just like the one displayed by reuters
I mean, it didn't go great for Snowden, and that was even before government by vindictive man-baby. No-one is going to go on the record on this sort of thing under current conditions.
I'm sure you mean that the article doesn't name any federal worker or person with knowledge of the events which they've quoted or paraphrased. In which case, of course. This administration has shown it will vindictively punish any dissent or disloyalty. Nobody wants to give their name for that. I will not disbelieve accounts just because the sources won't attach their names to them. If the administration wants better coverage, they need to accept that their employees may not always agree with or like them.
Some quotes from the article (was it really that hard to search for quotation marks yourself?):
>"We have been told they are looking for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language,” a third source familiar with the EPA said.
>"Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do,” a manager said, according to one of the sources.
>Last year, before Trump was elected, Musk suggested AI could be used to replace government workers, according to a person with direct knowledge of his comments. “The concept was that through taking the government data that they could build the most dynamic AI system ever,” the person said, adding that AI could then “do the work.”
>>> I will not disbelieve accounts just because the sources won't attach their names to them
Sounds like traditional media information is an article of faith for some, versus just another data point to analyze and address with skepticism in the search for truth.
I didn't say I would automatically believe something just because the reporter says "anonymous source." The reality is the administration's PR people spout an endless steam of lies, and "leakers" who share real facts are fired. There is no surprise to how this plays out: reporters seek the truth, employees want to share the truth, employees don't want to be fired, and you get anonymous sources out the wazoo.
The reason I said anonymous sources don't cause me to immediately dismiss articles is because I don't want to reward the admin for purposefully creating this shitty situation. I'll use other critical reading skills to determine the articles' value. It sucks that heavy reliance on anonymous sources isn't a huge flag anymore, but it is what it is.
This is normal for developing stories. They’re reporting things which they’ve heard from sources which they consider to be reliable, are informing readers of the limits of what they know, and will almost certainly publish additional articles when more information becomes available.
> Reuters could not establish exactly how Grok was being used.
> So, this article is a "we don't actually know" and a "they could be doing something but, but again we don't know".
> 0/10 Reuters
What do you want? The design specification and implementation? By what seems to be your standard, every newspaper would be empty. Which would be very convenient to some people! For instance, Elon Musk and DOGE.
Reuters knows what their sources are telling them, and they're reporting that. They're doing a fine job.
Grok is FIPS complaint, right? Safe for use with confidential information? PII/PHI?