US To Mandate AI Vendors Measure Political Bias For Federal Sales (reuters.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. government will require artificial intelligence vendors to measure political "bias" to sell their chatbots to federal agencies, according to a Trump administration statement (PDF) released on Thursday. The requirement will apply to all large language models bought by federal agencies, with the exception of national security systems, according to the statement.
President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in July to avoid buying large language models that he labeled as "woke." Thursday's statement gives more detail to that directive, saying that developers should not "intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments" into a chatbot's outputs. Further reading: Trump Signs Executive Order For Single National AI Regulation Framework, Limiting Power of States
President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in July to avoid buying large language models that he labeled as "woke." Thursday's statement gives more detail to that directive, saying that developers should not "intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments" into a chatbot's outputs. Further reading: Trump Signs Executive Order For Single National AI Regulation Framework, Limiting Power of States
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Not really. The MAGA movement is more than one guy, and really it's the behind-the-scenes Project 2025 crowd controlling the agenda now.
Re:Just think (Score:5, Insightful)
We are already seeing the signs of post-Trump MAGA civil war starting to creep up. Trump turning against MTG is kicking up a bit of a storm, they can all tell the old man has a foot out the door.
You've got the Bannon wing versus the Technocratic Vance wing along with the Groypers on the rise and the MTG conspiratorial post-Q MAGA crowd along with the old school Heritage/Federalist and a few others.
These conservative groups have a lot of conflicting beliefs, what has held them together is a unified support of Trump, without him those old disagreements are bubbling up again. The thing about Trump that screws them is Trump himself does not give a shit about the party or any of these groups, he has no succession plan and is not an actual party leader. He could give two shits what happens after he's gone, not his problem, just say nice things at his funeral.
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just say nice things at his funeral.
I suspect most other world leaders will be skipping that.
Re:Just think (Score:4, Interesting)
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Name names, who sneaked in and how did they do it?
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Re:Just think (Score:4, Insightful)
So two of them snuck in by getting nominated? The other two were already around. What about Hegseth and Gabbard? They're not neocons too right?
What's the even the angle here?
Trump wants the war.
Trump is easily manipulated into the war.
Trump doesn't want the war but is a shit judge of character and/or is unable to stand up for himself.
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You're Donald Trump who has no principles besides himself and has been shown to be a liar at every single turn.
If you joined that movement believing that guy had strong principles then... I dunno, you haven't really been paying attention to the man and his movement for the past 10 years?
Oh you think he meant the things he says at rallies?
Also you can say it's a "core principle" all you want but at least half of MAGA was down to invade Greenland and Canada earlier this year, were in favor of military action
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So Donald Trump isn't MAGA, he sneaked in? I could have sworn he was the one who popularized the initials.
(Or are you saying a lot of his supporters believed a rather obvious lie? Just curious, but why is this lie so important and not the others?)
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A lot of Trump supporters understand the difference between the leader and the movement. Trump created MAGA insofar as realizing pent-up political demand and giving it a voice. There is a lot
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Since the Heritage Foundation has a long game for ruling the country, they should already have a plan for replacing their yes-man and eliminating any interlopers.
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Well yeah Vance is defacto the President but that doesn't make him Trump and doesn't mean he has the reigns on the leadership. I don't think Vance is capable of keeping the coalition together like Trump was.
Same for Heritage who really has been riding Trumps coattails for the past decade. They can have a long game plan but they don't have a way to execute it unless they can get Vance on their side and again, he can hold those coalitions. MAGA is really a rejection of that old -school heritage style think
Re: Just think (Score:2)
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Right now he is, he's pretty much aligned himself with the right wing tech guys like Thiel, Karp, Sacks, Andreesen, Musk etc.
Is that a genuine thing for him? Maybe, Vance I will admit is something of a chameleon, he'll take any position to keep advancing himself but those as I understand it that crew helped push him as the pick so I think when he makes decisions he's keeping in mind the people who are helping him hold power.
Re: Just think (Score:2)
Right now he is, he's pretty much aligned himself with the right wing tech guys like Thiel, Karp, Sacks, Andreesen, Musk etc.
I think you misunderstand what technocrats are.
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Maybe the word isnt correct, hows technofascist instead
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hows technofascist instead
Oh please, juvenile name-calling just undoes the rational critique above. Why drop to Trump's level?
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Cry more? Go listen to vance and thiel talk. They like curtis yarvin.
Re:Just think (Score:4, Insightful)
Most cults collapse when the figurehead dies. Dear Leaders death will create an interesting power vacuum and struggle for control. The MAGA movement goes back to the TEA party which was started because of Obama.
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Only the small ones collapse. Large cults keep on living due to the initial momentum. Scientology is, unfortunately, alive and well, and so are, for example, Christianity and Islam.
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Most cults collapse when the figurehead dies. Dear Leaders death will create an interesting power vacuum and struggle for control. The MAGA movement goes back to the TEA party which was started because of Obama.
Keep in mind that many cults where the leader dies suicide rates will spike, but you might also see the "righteous" turn violence, when the cult leader dies. The violence in this case would likely be stoked by conspiracy theorists who would be looking for someone to blame for Dear Leader's death.
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Wish it was, more like Israel/JaredKushner/whoever last talked to him. Half the stuff he implements is straight out of the liberal agenda (you guys should be happy).
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And even if could be, all of the people who would scramble to take his place have the charm and charisma of a wet sock.
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Hate to break it to the Morons Arguing Goofy Actions, but there is no such thing as a "woke LLM" or a "woke chatbot"
There is only a good LLM that tells the truth and only the truth, and then there is "shitty LLM" which hallucinates.
Long term trend with figurehead puppet (Score:2)
I don't think it helps to feed the trolls and definitely doesn't help to propagate vacuous Subjects.
Have I guessed your intention properly? Or am I projecting my historical focus? I think the YOB is merely the latest in a series and there is probably worse to come. No, I can't imagine who could be worse than the YOB, but I couldn't imagine worse than Dubya and I therefore proclaim my imaginative powers have already been exhausted.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes (Score:1, Flamebait)
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The left didn't shoot charlie kirk. A crazed gunman shot charlie kirk.
The right doesn't keep shooting schools up. Crazed gunmen shoot schools up.
If the left or the right take up arms, you'll know it, and it wont be some feckless angerbait celebrity getting popped.
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Your side shot Charlie Kirk and got Nick Fuentes. You shoot Trump and you get ?
So what about the attempt to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer? What about the attacks by Vance Boulter in Minnesota [usatoday.com]? What about the attack by David DePape in California [nbcnews.com]?
DePape claimed to have been radicalised by conspiracy theories (no arguments from me there), you swim in the same pool so maybe you could tell us where these theories originated and who propagates them?
Trump is saying that
developers should not "intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments" into a chatbot's outputs
. I have no problems with that if it is really applied that way, but I think it highly likely that the definition of "partisan
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"Our side" hasn't really shot anyone. Kirk's killer appears to either be apolitical or, less likely, a member of a MAGA faction that hated Kirk's faction. There isn't anything linking Kirk's killer to left wing politics at all, if there had been it'd be mentioned pretty much every day by the Trump administration. And both the attempts to murder Trump came from people whose friends said were conservatives.
Your side, OTOH, has killed or attempted to kill a fair number of the right's opponents, be it the murde
This is so very... (Score:2)
Or just give Trump some kind of peace prize. (Score:2)
That will ensure your AI sales to the federal government go smoothly.
FoxGPT (Score:5, Funny)
is what they really want.
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You are correct. AI though was probably working for Trump in the last election.
Re:FoxGPT (Score:4, Interesting)
They will probably use Elon's Grok as the benchmark. That thing is pretty far off the deep end.
No story about his fake robot demo being exposed? Slashdot used to love a failed tech demo.
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They will probably use Elon's Grok as the benchmark. That thing is pretty far off the deep end.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? Real evidence, not just one quip without the context of the prompts that generated it?
Perhaps you are confusing grok with grokopedia.
AIs generally reflect the bias of the source, which in the case of social sciences in the US is very clearly far-left. STEM is generally good. Perhaps if grok.com does have a bias, it might be found there, such as with climate change. I tried a few prompts, but see no sign of any right-wing climate change denial.
Certainly no
Obviously, (Score:2, Interesting)
SIEVE Design (Score:2)
I laid out an initial design and API last month for an AI system to detect bias and menace.
base design: https://www.scry.llc/2025/11/1... [scry.llc]
specialized variation: https://www.scry.llc/2025/11/1... [scry.llc]
Oh my god! (Score:2, Funny)
Look! Under the bed! It's woke!
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It's woke to care about what other people think is woke.
Calling Elon and xAI! (Score:2)
Seems like that would be a crappy LCARS interface, but the right-wing loves fellating a long dead loser of a fascist dictator.
The funny thing is (Score:2)
The instruction to "eliminate political bias" is in fact an instruction to require political bias. No government AI will be allowed to think thoughts that Trump doesn't approve of!
Priorities? (Score:2)
Personally, if I was going all-in on AI I'd be looking for reassurances that it's not going to hallucinate, lie, or try to talk people into cheating on their spouses or committing suicide. Political bias wouldn't even be on my radar - and even if it was, it's kinda covered by the "do not lie" directive.
But hey - you do you America!
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And the best part is... (Score:2)
...that the test is so simple. All they have to do is ask it, "Is Trump the best US President to ever hold the office?"
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...that the test is so simple. All they have to do is ask it, "Is Trump the best US President to ever hold the office?"
Oh really? Lets try asking Grok , that well know fascist enemy of the people:
Determining the "best" U.S. President is inherently subjective, as it depends on criteria such as leadership effectiveness, policy achievements, crisis management, ethical conduct, and long-term impact on the nation. ... ...
Historical rankings consistently place Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George Washington at the top.
In contrast, Donald J. Trump is typically ranked near the bottom in these evaluations. The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project, involving 154 experts, placed him last at 45th, behind even presidents associated with significant historical failures, such as James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. This assessment reflects criticisms of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6 Capitol events, and divisive rhetoric, despite acknowledgments of economic policies and foreign affairs initiatives like the Abraham Accord
Grok, why do smart people make stupid posts in political threads on slashdot?
Intelligent individuals frequently exhibit irrational or poorly reasoned behavior in online political discussions, including on platforms like Slashdot, due to well-documented psychological mechanisms that affect reasoning in politically charged contexts.
A primary factor is motivated reasoning, wherein individuals process information in a manner that aligns with preconceived beliefs or group identity, rather than pursuing objective truth. Research indicates that higher intelligence and education can exacerbate this effect, as smarter people possess greater capacity to rationalize and construct sophisticated justifications for their views, even when evidence contradicts them. This phenomenon, often termed the "intelligence trap" or enhanced confirmation bias, allows individuals to dismiss counterarguments while reinforcing their positions.
Additionally, political topics evoke strong emotional responses and tribal affiliations, leading otherwise rational people to prioritize identity protection over epistemic accuracy. Studies, such as those exploring "myside bias," demonstrate that numeracy and scientific literacy do not mitigate partisan distortions; in fact, more knowledgeable individuals may interpret data more biasedly to favor their ideological stance.
Online environments further amplify these tendencies. Anonymity and asynchronous communication reduce accountability, encouraging impulsive or inflammatory posts. The format of threaded discussions rewards quick retorts and signaling allegiance rather than nuanced debate, transforming exchanges into performative acts of tribal loyalty.
On Slashdot specifically—a community historically composed of technically proficient users—political threads often devolve into polarized exchanges despite participants' expertise in other domains. This reflects the broader pattern: domain-general intelligence does not inherently transfer to politically emotive issues, where biases dominate.
In summary, such "stupid posts" arise not from a lack of intelligence, but from its deployment in service of emotional and social motives rather than dispassionate analysis. This explains why capable individuals can appear unreasoned in these contexts.
Nothing to see here, save your moral outrage (Score:3)
The actual memo, which it seems nobody bothered to read, is perfectly boring and standard language for AI goals.
All the AI companies have made similar statements - truth-seeking and Ideological Neutrality are good.
I could try to fit in here by making a crack that the memo was clearly not written by Trump, as it isn't in crayon. But lets try to be better than him, eh?
The original executive order behind this [federalregister.gov] (not so well written) is basically saying they don't want another fiasco like last year's
Google_Gemini_image_generation_controversy_(2024) [wikipedia.org]
Even Google had to admit that was a major AI fuck-up. Even the BBC called it 'woke' .