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

[Frédéric Neyrat via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

dear Brian and dear Felix,

one answer is there:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-vice-president-the-american-dynamism-summit

"populism" + "techno-optimism" = JDV, the Mediator

F

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On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 1:57 PM Brian Holmes via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> 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/
> >
> > --
> > | |||||||||||||||| http://felix.openflows.com |
> > | |||||||||| https://tldr.nettime.org/@festal |
> > | for secure communication, please use signal |
> >
> >
> >
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