DOGE 使用有缺陷的人工智能工具来“咀嚼”退伍军人事务合同

Trump administration and VA contracts: Prepared to cancel VA contracts, turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience.
- Engineer's work: Built an AI tool for identifying non-essential private company services and labeled contracts "MUNCHABLE" using outdated AI models with glaring mistakes.
DOGE AI tool and its results: Flagged over 2,000 contracts for "munching", unclear how many have been or will be canceled. VA uses contractors for various reasons.
Cancelled contracts: At least two dozen on the DOGE list have been canceled, including those for maintaining gene sequencing devices, blood sample analysis, and providing care tools.
Code and experts' views: Code was flawed. Many criticized using AI to guide VA budget cuts. Cary Coglianese was troubled by using general-purpose large language models.
Sahil Lavingia: Programmer with 15 years of experience but no formal AI training. Worked at DOGE for nearly two months. Laid off 75% of his company and used automation.
Time pressure and process: Short timeline due to Trump's executive order led to using AI to write code. Lavingia spent the first week downloading and analyzing VA contracts.
VA's stance: Reviewing all 76,000 contracts to ensure they benefit veterans and use taxpayer money wisely. Will not cancel contracts directly impacting care.
Contract review process: Opaque, staff sometimes given little time to justify retaining services. Technological limitations led to errors in the code.
Lavingia's prompts: Flawed, not including context about VA operations, leading to incorrect determinations.
Open sourcing and dismissal: Lavingia published the "munchable" script on GitHub with Musk's approval. He was dismissed after an interview, and VA officials declined to comment.
Government contractors' concern: Heard from contractors trying to understand how to keep their contracts. Transparency is seen as good.
Contact information: For information about AI misuse in government agencies, contact Brandon Roberts. For VA information, contact Vernal Coleman or Eric Umansky.
Source and newsletter: Story originally on ProPublica.org. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive such stories.