Trump’s new AI chatbot is surprisingly good. But it doesn’t fix government

If there are two things Donald Trump loves more than anything in life, it’s participating in elaborate signing ceremonies and artificial intelligence—sorry, superintelligence. And on September 29, the U.S. president combined both loves with the launch of a new executive order, titled “Streamlining Access to Government Services Through America.gov,” which sets up a new front door through which confused citizens can try to navigate the complexities of the federal government. The America.gov chatbot tries to cut through the thicket of complications inherent in government while catering to the American obsession with AI chatbots. (Half of Americans say they use an AI chatbot, according to the Pew Research Center.) “We’re simplifying it. We’re glamorizing it,” Trump said at the signing ceremony for the effort to make government work better for people through AI. “We’re making it what it should be.” And at first glance, the interface—which uses Gemini and Grok as its underlying models and collects a surprisingly small amount of user data—seems pretty good, according to digital government and AI experts. When Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and director of the AI and Human Rights Program…