“We don’t want AI demonstrations, we want answers”: Federal workers are going all out
One colleague added: “When there are great tools out there, the job of GSA is to procure them, not to make mediocre alternatives.”
“Do you use this AI to organize [reduction in force]? ” Asked another federal worker.
“When will you return the Adobe Pro to us?” Another. “This is a key program we use every day. Please return or at least be able to return the date.”
Staff also objected to returning to the office mission. “How about it [return to office] When our clients, contractors or our people are not [integrated product teams] Want to be in the same office? “We are still doing all the work via email or Google meetings,” the GSA worker asked. ”
An employee asked Ehikian who the GSA’s Governor’s team was actually. Two employees who were directly aware of the incidents said, “GSA does not have a Doge team.” Employees, many of whom have met Doge employees at GSA, but have not purchased them. “Like we didn’t notice a bunch of kids working behind a safe area on the 6th floor,” one employee told Wired. Luke Farritor, a young former SpaceX intern who has worked at Doge since the organization’s earliest days, has seen sunglasses in the GSA office in recent weeks, and so has Ethan Shaotran, another young Doge worker who recently served as president of Harvard Mountaineering Club. A GSA employee described Shaotran as “wearing a blazer and a T-shirt.”
GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Wired.
During the meeting, Ehikian presented a slide detailing the goals of GSA (right size, simplified operations, deregulation and IT innovation), which are also current cost savings. Avoid “total cost” of $1.84 billion. The number of employees who generated AI tools built using GSA is 1,383. The number of hours saved from automation is said to be 178,352. Ehikian also noted that the agency has canceled or reduced 35,354 credit cards used by government workers and terminated 683 leases. (With connection cannot confirm any of these statistics.
“Any efficiency calculation requires a denominator,” GSA employees wrote in a chat. “Cutting can reduce spending, but it can also reduce the value delivered to the U.S. public. How is the value captured in the scorecard?”
Ehikian presents a vision for the future in a slide titled “The Way Forward.” One pillar says, “Choose a federal real estate portfolio.” “Central procurement,” another reads. Subcategories include “Reduce compliance burden to increase competition”, “Center our data to be accessible across teams” and “Optimize GSA’s cloud and software spending.”
Online, employees seem to be guaranteed. “So, will Stephen limit himself to any federal contracts after his tenure as a GSA administrator, especially in terms of AI and IT software?” asked an employee in the chat. No answer.
