The Department of Government Efficiency (or multiple doors) have secured unprecedented access to at least seven sensitive federal databases, including those of the IRS and Social Security. This access has sparked fears about cybersecurity vulnerability and privacy violations. Another issue has received less attention: the potential use of data to train private companies’ artificial intelligence systems.
The White House media secretary said that although Elon Musk controlled Elon Musk, the government data collected by Doge was not used to train Musk's AI models. However, there is evidence that Doge personnel are in positions at least one Musk company at the same time.
At the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX employees have government email addresses. This dual work creates a channel for federal data that could sneak into Musk-owned businesses, including XAI. The company's latest Grok AI Chatbot model clearly rejects explicitly using such data.
As a political scientist and technician who is very familiar with the sources of public government data, I think this potential transmission of government data to private companies has a greater impact on privacy and power than most reports identify. Private entities with the ability to develop AI technology can use government data to surpass their competitors and have a huge impact on society.
The value of government data
For AI developers, government databases represent something similar to finding the Holy Grail. While companies like OpenAI, Google and XAI currently rely on information scraped from the public internet, non-public government repositories offer something more valuable: validating records of actual human behavior throughout the population.
It's more than just more data – it's fundamentally different data. Social media posts and web browsing history show carefully planned or expected behavior, but government databases capture real decisions and their consequences. For example, Medicare records reveal healthcare choices and outcomes. IRS and Treasury data reveal financial decisions and long-term impacts. Federal employment and education statistics reveal educational paths and career trajectories.
What makes these data particularly valuable for AI training is its longitudinal nature and reliability. Unlike disorderly information available online, government records follow standardized protocols, conduct regular reviews, and must meet legal requirements for accuracy. Every Social Security payment, Medicare claim, and federal grant creates verification data points about real-world behavior. In the United States, this data exists nowhere, with such breadth and authenticity
Most importantly, government databases track the entire population over time, not just digitally active users. They include those who never use social media, do not shop online, or actively avoid digital services. For AI companies, this will mean training systems about the actual diversity of human experience, not just digital thinking people project online.
Technical Advantages
The basic limitations faced by current AI systems cannot overcome data on the Internet. When Gemini at Chatgpt or Google make mistakes, it is usually because they are trained for information that may be popular but not necessarily correct. They can tell you what people say about the impact of policy, but they can’t track these effects in the population and in a few years.
Government data may change this equation. Imagine training AI systems not only train their perceptions of healthcare, but also their actual treatment outcomes for millions of patients. Consider the differences between discussions on economic policy from social media and analyzing the actual impact of different communities and demographics over the decades.
Large, state-of-the-art or cutting-edge models that train comprehensive government data can understand the actual relationship between policy and outcomes. It can track unintended consequences in different population areas, model complex social systems with realistic verification, and predict the impact of proposed changes based on historical evidence. For companies looking to build the next-generation AI system, accessing this data will create an advantage that is almost insurmountable.
Control of critical systems
Companies like XAI can use much more models to train government data instead of building better chatbots or content generators. Such systems can fundamentally change and have the potential to control how people understand and manage complex social systems. While some of these functions may be beneficial under the control of the responsible public institutions, I think they pose a threat in the hands of a private company.
The Medicare and Medicaid database contains decades of records of treatment, outcomes and costs for a wide range of populations. The border model trained by new government data can identify successful treatment patterns where others fail, thus dominating the healthcare industry. Such a model can understand how different interventions affect various populations over time, taking into account factors such as geographical location, socioeconomic conditions, and concurrency conditions.
Companies using this model can influence health care policies by showing excellent predictive capabilities and market population-level insights to pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies.
Treasury data may represent the most valuable prize. The government financial database contains details about how money flows into the economy. This includes real-time transaction data across federal payment systems, complete records of taxes and refunds, detailed patterns of benefits allocation, and government contractor payments with performance indicators.
AI companies with access to this data can provide extraordinary capabilities for economic forecasting and market forecasting. It can simulate the cascading effects of regulatory changes, predict economic vulnerability before a crisis, and optimize investment strategies with impossible accuracy through traditional methods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l0ieoqlmxk
Infrastructure and urban systems
The government database contains information on the usage patterns of critical infrastructure, maintenance history, emergency response times and development impacts. Each federal grant, infrastructure inspection, and emergency response creates a data point that can help train AI to better understand how cities and regions work.
Power lies in the potential interconnectivity of this data. AI systems trained in government infrastructure records will understand how transportation methods affect energy use, how housing policies affect emergency response times, and how infrastructure investments affect economic development across the region.
Private companies with exclusive access will gain unique insights into the physical and economic arteries of American society. This could enable companies to develop a “smart city” system in which city governments will rely on privatization in terms of urban governance. When used in conjunction with real-time data from private resources, prediction capabilities will go far beyond what the current system can achieve.
Absolutely corrupted data
Companies like Xai, which have Musk's resources and prioritized access through Mendog, are easier to overcome technical and political obstacles than competitors. Recent advances in machine learning have also eased the burden of preparing algorithms to process data, making government data a veritable gold mine—it is rightly belonging to the American people.
The threat of private companies accessing government data goes beyond personal privacy issues. Even if personal identifiers are removed, AI systems that analyze patterns of millions of government records can enable people to make predictions and influence demographic behaviors. Threats are AI systems that use government data to influence society, including election results.
Since information is power, concentrating unprecedented data in the hands of a private entity with a clear political agenda is a far-reaching challenge for the Republic. I believe the question is whether the American people can tolerate this potential democratic destruction of concentrated forces. If not, Americans should be prepared to be digital subjects, not human citizens.
Allison Stanger, Distinguished Professor, Middlebury
This article is republished from the conversation under the Creative Sharing License. Read the original article.
