Re: <nettime> At Doge, AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

The notion that DOGE wants a direct pipeline to taxpayer money is highly
plausible, in a context where, for just one instance, Musk is advocating
politically for a Golden Dome missile-defence system that his companies
will build. This is the well-known neoliberal playbook: appropriate public
money for corporate designs, whether it's schools, water systems, space
programs, or whatever.

The structural parallels between the Christian Nationalists' admiration of
God and Silicon Valley's AI faith are a great insight, one of those
striking ideas that immediately ring true.

But what does it mean to say that Christian Nationalism and the "AI faith"
(aka Silicon Valley) are fully fused? Is there an evangelist that straddles
the two camps? How do they coordinate? What is the Christian payoff for the
libertarian heist?

These questions matter because the populist base that supports the Trump
administration is largely Christian Nationalist. It is widely assumed that
their link to libertarianism is non-existent and therefore, a basic
weakness of the Trump coalition. If the Christian Nationalists were to
start seeing AI as God, or if some Silicon Valley nutcase is successfully
explaining to them that AI is God, or it's God working through machines, or
whatever claptrap they may believe or pretend to believe, in all cases
that's extremely bad news.

So I am curious whether this goes beyond Carhenge...

best, Brian

On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 12:27 PM Felix Stalder via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

>
> This is one of the best account I've seen about what DOGE is actually
> doing, practically and strategically. It's a first hand account of
> someone deeply involved in government AI.
>
> The key sentences are:
>
> "Lately the AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism.
> Together, these two faiths crave the end of American liberal democracy
> and government."
>
> and the final paragraph.
>
> Felix
>
> PS: as an added benefit, I learned about https://carhenge.com/
>
>
>
> https://carhenge.club/@skiles/114203147063483693
> Mar 22, 2025, 01:02
>
> I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out
> to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of
> the others they've fired.
>
> It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the
> process is fascinating. I worked on a tool we called the AI sandbox. Our
> goal: let federal software devs test out AI tools in a safe way, to
> discover if they have any use. Renamed GSAi, the tool has been claimed
> by DOGE. It is being rolled out on an alarming accelerated schedule.
>
>
> No one from the new admin wrote a single line of code for it. But GSAi
> has become their proud "AI-first strategy." (Previously at my job,
> rather than AI or any tech we put *people* first. See 18F's work on
> "human-centered design.")
>
> As my coworker explains in this demo, we knew AI's capability is limited
>
> "The principle is to show you *not* that AI is great for everything, not
> to try to encourage you to stick AI into every product.... You can get
> yourself into trouble thinking that it can do things that it can't."
>
> As a fed, I am accustomed to knowledgeable and diverse coworkers who
> don't get snookered by the latest buzzwords. But yesterday at GSA
> headquarters, 6 white guys in suits (one without a tie!) took the stage.
> They demo'd GSAi like it was pure magic to them. [1]
>
>
> While saying "this is incredible" over and over, Musk's GSA head Stephen
> Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a website." The output was not compliant
> with federal law. It said "Welcome to Our Company" on it and did not
> resemble a federal website at all.
>
> 😟 This garbage demo had a terrified audience
>
> One viewer said "if this is the tool meant to replace us, thank God".
> Everyone is afraid for their jobs, their projects, and their democracy.
> There is a widespread impression that AI is supposed to replace the
> people who are fired.
>
> I actually don't think that's the plan. Let me explain:
>
> There is a quasi-religion in Silicon Valley that views AI as godlike.
> This faith has always been parallel to Evangelical Christianity: it has
> salvation (transhumanism), the rapture (the technological singularity),
> and demons (Roko's Basilisk)
>
> Lately the AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism.
>
> Together, these two faiths crave the end of American liberal democracy
> and government. You can smell it at GSA.
>
> They won't replace us with AI because 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐
> 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍. They want our work to end. DOGE is
> firing us as fast as possible, and that is the whole plan.
>
> Listen: maybe I'm wrong and this is just the worst software deployment
> of my career, not actually a conspiracy against democracy.
>
> Maybe these guys just don't see they are frittering away all product and
> service design knowledge in the agency. And don't even know that they
> lack this knowledge.
>
> Honestly: From the 2013 failure of healthcare.gov to today, the
> government *almost* learned how to build software. We were close. Then a
> bunch of white men in suits swooped in to snatch defeat from the jaws of
> victory.
>
> Maybe they are just incompetent. But I think it's worse than that.
>
> On stage, Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a plan to rewrite the FAR"
>
> The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, are laws that control how the
> gov't buys stuff. They are legendary in their complexity for a good
> reason: to prevent corruption. To protect taxpayer money from theft by
> beltway bandits.
>
> The AI's "plan" to simplify the FAR was generic and unusable, of course.
> But it is a subject that Ehikian and DOGE keep returning to:
> Contracting. Acquisition. The money.
>
> They want to file the corners off of the process that regulates
> government spending. They want to consolidate all government contracts
> in one place. And put AI in charge.
>
> I believe the firings and the AI have the same purpose: to get humans
> out of the loop of evaluating contracts. To automate the process of
> spending government money. To rig up a computer that sends taxpayer
> dollars directly to the broligarchy. And to make sure democracy can't
> switch that computer off.
>
>
>
> [1] https://www.wired.com/story/gsa-staff-all-hands-meeting-ai/
>
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