DOGE, the Nightmare of the Artificial Intelligence Age?

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umanity has never before faced a technological transformation comparable to the momentum provided by artificial intelligence. Machines are replacing not only muscle power, but also mental activity. They can perform tasks requiring decision-making, foresight, and creativity much faster, more accurately, and at a lower cost than humans can. This has created an unprecedented explosion of productivity in all sectors of the economy while shaking fundamental assumptions about the social order.

Amidst this upheaval, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has emerged as both a glimmer of hope and a dystopian nightmare. DOGE was established in response to the need for governments to optimize public services and reduce costs by seizing the increasing efficiency opportunities offered by AI. However, its existence and methodology have raised profound ethical and sociological questions.

DOGE was founded to extend the productivity gains driven by artificial intelligence to the entire state apparatus, thereby reducing pressure on public finances. Governments had lagged far behind the productivity revolution in the private sector, becoming relics of the Industrial Age with their cumbersome bureaucracies and large public-sector employment.

Due to automation in the private sector, tax revenues were shrinking, while the cost of maintaining traditional public services was becoming unbearable. This dilemma led governments to the inevitable conclusion that they had to rapidly and radically reduce public sector employment. However, this was an extremely delicate operation that could have amounted to political suicide.

Thus, DOGE was created to transform this process into a technical matter and render it politically acceptable. The department was tasked with deciding the rate and speed at which government departments would be automated, managing the process, and explaining to the public that it was “data-driven, objective optimization.”

DOGE’s functioning and social impacts

During the initial phase of its operations, DOGE examined all government departments to identify areas with significant “optimization potential.” This involved a thorough analysis of not only the civil servants handling paperwork but also the mid- and high-level decision-making processes. Sophisticated algorithms calculated the workload of each ministry, the added value of each employee, how much time was spent, and how much time and cost AI systems would require to perform the same work.

The results were often striking. It was reported that up to 70% of the workforce in certain departments could be replaced by AI systems that can work continuously with zero error. In line with DOGE’s reports, the unmanning process began in small pilot regions and quickly spread across the country. Tax offices, registry offices, social welfare offices, and libraries were optimized one after the other by DOGE.

However, the human cost of this optimization was enormous. Tens of thousands of public employees were laid off as “inefficient.” The department offered “talent transition programs” and “re-education camps” to soften the blow, but these were insufficient to stem the tsunami of unemployment created by automation. A deep distrust and fear of DOGE and its cold, unmanned algorithms began to take hold in society.

People were concerned that important decisions affecting their lives, such as whether they would receive social assistance or be fined for taxes and the criteria for accessing healthcare, would be made solely by software without human intervention. Although DOGE’s algorithms were designed to be “unbiased,” biases in the data used to train them could lead to discriminatory decisions against disadvantaged communities. These biases exacerbated social inequalities, leading to mass protests against DOGE. DOGE began as an efficiency project but quickly became a symbol of social unrest and technological domination.

DOGE: The inescapable global imperative

Although controversial, the DOGE model is being closely watched by other governments and their economists. This is because the conditions that gave rise to DOGE are universal. Countries around the world are facing similar demographic, economic, and technological pressures. Populations are aging, the cost of social security systems is rising exponentially, and artificial intelligence and automation are eroding the traditional tax base. No government can finance an unlimitedly growing public sector. This fact makes the emergence of DOGE-like institutions a necessity rather than a choice.

It seems inevitable that DOGE-like departments with different names and operational models will be established in many countries in the near future. Some countries will attempt to implement a more transparent and people-oriented model, perhaps supported by social policies such as universal basic income. Others will prefer a more authoritarian and ruthless optimization process similar to the original DOGE model. This will accentuate philosophical and political differences in how nations manage technology.

Ultimately, the DOGE phenomenon represents the great dilemma of the artificial intelligence age: How can humanity harness enormous technological power to enable prosperity and progress while preserving the social fabric and human values? DOGE is concrete proof that a satisfactory answer to this question has yet to be found. What awaits humanity: a dystopia of efficiency or a new civilization centered on the social fabric and human values?