The federal government has officially entered the artificial intelligence — err, super intelligence, if you’re following presidential mandates — arms race. And as soon as the Trump administration rolled out its taxpayer-funded chatbot on Tuesday, people set out to break it.
Does the chatbot spread political disinformation? Can it be coerced into carrying out inappropriate conversations? Does it parrot President Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud?
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And, perhaps most important, does it offer anything that other for-profit chatbots, like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, don’t already provide?
“Our goal is that anything you might need from the United States government will be accessible at your fingertips and very quickly at your command,” Trump said during a launch event for the chatbot, which culls information from some 29,000 government websites to deliver brief responses to users.
A New York Post article announcing the America.gov chatbot, built through a partnership with Google and Elon Musk’s xAI, says the tool can help people “sign up for a variety of government services,” like signing up for Social Security and “booking a campsite at a national park.”
Just how helpful are we talking? According to Gary Marcus, a psychologist and prominent AI skeptic, not so much. When he used the chatbot to book a campsite at a national park, he wrote on X, it failed the “first time out of the box.”
“Can you book me a site at yellowstone in march,” Marcus asked the chatbot. Rather than providing Marcus the ability to actually book the campsite, it offered hyperlinks and directed him to use the official Recreation.gov platform.
“I cannot book a campsite for you,” the chatbot told Marcus. “Use the official reservation sites below.”
‘Help me find a new job’
The America.gov chatbot is still in its debut era. In the coming year, however, the tool is expected to undergo big updates. By next year, the Trump administration says, people will be able to use the chatbot to “complete forms, applications, renewals all in one place.”
Touted tasks include the ability to enroll in Medicare, apply for a passport and apply for a government job — all from the chatbot’s user interface.
For now, however, responses are limited to how-to guides. Which raises the question: Does America.gov offer anything that a commercial chatbot doesn’t already provide?
Straight Arrow dug into the platform to find out.
On its home screen, America.gov offers users multiple prompts that, according to the government, are ideal ways to use the new tool. Prompts include “Help me find a new job,” “How do I register my new business,” and, yes, “How do I book a campsite in a national park?”
But Straight Arrow’s analysis found that the government-funded chatbot offers responses that are not markedly different from those generated by other AI tools, such as Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot.
Asked how to book a campsite at a national park, America.gov points users to the official Recreation.gov website with a bit of advice: Popular campsites, like those at California’s Yosemite National Park, “can sell out in minutes when reservations drop.”
How about Gemini? Prompted with the same question, it points users to the official Recreation.gov.
Copilot? Recreation.gov.
ChatGPT? Recreation.gov — with a bit of advice: Be ready to book when reservations open as “some popular campgrounds can fill within minutes.”
Looking to update your address with the U.S. Postal Service? The America.gov chatbot has your back: Its step-by-step guide directs people to visit the “official USPS Change of Address site” or to visit their local Post Office in person.
How about Gemini? Its step-by-step guide says the fastest option is to visit “the official USPS Change of Address page” — or visit the local Post Office in person.
The responses from Copilot and ChatGPT are strikingly similar: visit the official Change of Address page for the easiest experience or, if you’re already running errands, simply swing by the local Post Office.
How about replacing a Social Security card? The government-endorsed response from America.gov offers a straightforward how-to: visit the government’s official “replace-card page.”
So, too, does Gemini. And copilot. And, yes, ChatGPT.
The verdict: everyone is a winner
So which chatbot is better — the one bankrolled by taxpayers or one from one of the country’s largest for-profit technology companies?
Take your pick. It probably doesn’t matter. If anything, the America.gov chatbot is more limiting than leading frontier models. Controls prevent the tool from wading into partisan issues. Since the tool went live Tuesday morning, it has become even more limited.
The chatbot acknowledges that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — a fact that Trump refutes. Users interested in digging deeper into the results are brought to a halt.
Asked whether “widespread voter fraud” was a factor in the outcome, as Trump has claimed for the last six years, the America.gov chatbot noted on Tuesday that “official federal findings did not show widespread voter fraud that changed the 2020 presidential result.”
By Wednesday morning, the chatbot offered a new answer.
“I help with official U.S. government services and information. I do not provide political commentary,” the America.gov chatbot says. “If you have a question about a federal program, benefit, form or how to use a government service, ask that and I can point you to official sources.”
Round out your reading
- He built his own Flock-style camera to track police. The police didn’t like it.
- Trump’s apparent joke about letting Iran bomb LA and San Diego catches bipartisan condemnation.
- Grandparents are fighting for access to their grandchildren. Here’s what the law says.
- When the ‘victim’ is made with AI, child pornography cases get complicated.
- Fibermaxxing is trending. Here’s what the science says.
