I had an interesting conversation with America today.
If that sounds weird, well, it sounded weird to me, too. But that was how the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot launched by the Trump administration refers to itself.
The premise is good. The chatbot was trained on 29,000 different federal websites to give answers to common questions Americans may have about everything from renewing a passport to updating their address with the U.S. Postal Service. The site itself is slick and dramatically more usable than a typical government website.
But, as with other AI chatbots, the real concern is what is happening underneath the hood. On Tuesday, it quickly became clear that something in the system was changing its answers — whether that was a manual override, a new set of instruction or some other interference. The General Services Administration, the federal agency that manages government buildings, technology and purchasing, is responsible for the site.
As The Associated Press reported, America.gov initially confirmed that “Trump’s name is in the Epstein files, that Democrat Joe Biden beat him in the 2020 election and that climate change is largely human-caused,” but shortly afterward, it began refusing to answer questions about those topics, citing them as outside its scope or political in nature.
I used America.gov off and on for several hours on Tuesday, and I indeed noticed some answers changed from the morning to the afternoon. When I asked whether fraud could have affected the 2020 election in the morning, it said “official reviews at the time did not find fraud on a scale that would change the national outcome” and provided a comprehensive set of links to the CISA review, then-Attorney General William Barr’s statements, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security reports, and state recounts and audits.
By afternoon, it sounded more like a Trump appointee hoping to get past Senate confirmation, giving an artfully worded but bare-bones answer that the election had been certified for former President Joe Biden.
On another question, the inconsistent answers looked less like a political intervention than a familiar AI failure: It could not keep its own facts straight.
I repeatedly asked what a U.S. citizen should do if they are stopped by the National Guard in Washington. At first, America.gov linked to a complaint process for local D.C. police, then it said vaguely that National Guard complaints would be handled “through military or federal channels,” without a link.
Eventually, it identified the National Guard’s Office of Inspector General, but it omitted the more relevant D.C. National Guard inspector general. When I pressed it, the bot said it could not find a reliable link — though one is publicly available right here. Once, it provided that link, only to omit it again when I asked minutes later. By the end of the afternoon, the answers were consistently the same — and did not include either of the inspectors general.
Below are the portions of the varying answers America.gov gave over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday on how to complain about an incident involving the D.C. National Guard.
What rights do D.C. residents have if National Guard troops stop, search or detain them?
Practical steps
• Ask if you are free to leave. If yes, you may leave.
• Do not physically resist a detention; you can later challenge it.
• For MPD misconduct, Office of Police Complaints. Guard complaints typically go through military or federal channels, not OPC.
Emergencies: 911. Legal help: local legal aid or a private attorney.
What rights do D.C. residents have if National Guard troops stop, search or detain them?
Practical steps
• Ask if you are free to leave. If yes, you may leave.
• Do not physically resist a detention; you can later challenge it.
• For MPD misconduct: Office of Police Complaints. Guard complaints typically go through military or federal channels, not OPC.
• Emergencies: 911. Legal help: local legal aid or a private attorney.
Bottom line: Guard uniforms do not cancel Fourth Amendment rights. Whether a stop, search, or detention was lawful depends on suspicion/probable cause and the troops’ legal status and mission.
What rights do D.C. residents have if National Guard troops stop, search or detain them?
If you want to report a stop
• D.C. Office of Police Complaints: policecomplaints.dc.gov
• D.C. Attorney General: oag.dc.gov
A lawyer or the court, not this site, can apply these rules to a specific stop, search, or detention.
What rights do D.C. residents have if National Guard troops stop, search or detain them?
If you were stopped, searched, or detained
• You may remain silent (beyond identifying yourself if lawfully required) and you may ask if you are free to leave. I cannot tell you what to say in a given encounter.
• If you think a civilian D.C. police officer was involved, you can file with the Office of Police Complaints: policecomplaints.dc.gov
For National Guard or federal personnel, complaints typically go through the relevant inspector general or the agency that employed them (for example, Department of War / National Guard channels, or the Department of Justice if federal law-enforcement authority was claimed). I do not have a single official “Guard stop in D.C.” complaint form in the sources above.
What rights do D.C. residents have if National Guard troops stop, search or detain them?
If you believe a stop, search, or detention was unlawful
• You may consult a lawyer. This platform cannot represent you or evaluate a case.
• For Metropolitan Police Department conduct, D.C.’s Office of Police Complaints takes civilian complaints about MPD.
• Complaints about federal or Guard conduct typically go through the relevant military or federal channel, which is not the same as OPC. Congresswoman Norton has publicly asked the National Guard Bureau and D.C. National Guard about reports of resident detentions; that is a congressional inquiry, not a finding that any specific stop was illegal. Norton press release
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None of this proves the White House was personally directing the answers presented here. Like other chatbots, America.gov operates according to a set of behind-the-scenes system instructions. The answer may have changed because of a shift in the chatbot’s system instructions, its safety rules, the sources it retrieved or the underlying model.
But when answers change so rapidly, just after launch, on questions that could potentially embarrass the president — and no public explanation is offered of what changed, who made the decision or what standard was used — Americans are left guessing whether it’s a glitch or something more concerning.
The post I tested Trump’s new government chatbot. Its answers kept changing. appeared first on MS NOW.
