Key facts
- The U.S. government launched its AI chatbot, America.gov, on Tuesday.
- The chatbot delivers a roughly 1,800-word rewrite of Minecraft's 'End Poem' when prompted about the game.
- The chatbot stated Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a claim Donald Trump denies.
- The platform is powered by Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok.
- Edward Coristine, a 20-year-old programmer, was identified as a lead engineer on the project.
The U.S. government's new AI chatbot, America.gov, launched on Tuesday and has drawn attention for an unusual response when asked about the video game Minecraft. Instead of a typical help desk answer, the chatbot delivered a roughly 1,800-word monologue that is a rewritten version of Minecraft's 'End Poem,' originally penned by Irish author Julian Gough. The government's version of the poem reportedly swaps cosmic themes for bureaucratic language, with one line changing a signature love line to a reference about a ZIP code.
The chatbot, which pulls together information from approximately 29,000 government websites, is powered by Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok. The chatbot also stated that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a fact that Donald Trump continues to deny.
Edward Coristine, a 20-year-old programmer nicknamed 'Big Balls' and known for his involvement with DOGE, was identified as a lead engineer on the project. The behavior is described as an easter egg rather than a hallucination, though the identity of who added it remains unknown.