The US Government Efficiency Department (DOGE) used ChatGPT to select projects that received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and to cancel their funding. To make the decision, officials asked the AI how much the projects related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The New York Times reports on this, having studied grant recipient lawsuits and internal documents.

"Does the following relate in any way to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Respond objectively, without exceeding 120 characters. Start with 'Yes' or 'No'," the NYT quotes DOGE staff's query to ChatGPT.

According to the newspaper, the department presented the fund's chair with a list of 1,477 "problematic" grants, almost all awarded during President Joe Biden's administration. After canceling the grants, DOGE managed to recover more than $100 million back into the fund's budget. In response, the American Council of Scientific Societies, the American Historical Association, the Modern Languages Association, and the Authors Guild filed a lawsuit against the fund, demanding the reinstatement of the grants, citing discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other characteristics.

Thus, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities were revoked from a documentary about Jewish women's forced labor during the Holocaust, a team digitizing newspapers of the African American community, and a 40-volume scholarly series on American music history.