As the US federal government continues its fusion with Silicon Valley — nowhere more obvious than the tag team tactics of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget — the highest levels of policymaking are being inundated by a potent technosolutionist myth: AI will deliver efficiency by slashing wasteful programs, identifying fraud, and automating the jobs of redundant federal employees. 

This narrative is spreading quickly. State governments are creating copycat DOGEs, “utiliz[ing] artificial intelligence,” in the words of Florida Gov. DeSantis, “to uncover hidden waste.” Across the Atlantic, the UK Prime Minister has described AI as a “golden opportunity” to make the government smaller.

As Policy Director Brian J. Chen explains in this brief, the embrace of such myths reveals a profound misunderstanding of what AI can do and what the government is meant to deliver for the American people. A hasty rush to roll out untested AI will not result in high-quality government services. Instead, the unchecked use of AI will accelerate large-scale harms to the public, gutting critical services while offering no avenues for accountability and recourse.