I Now Share My Feed on X with Grok

Last Monday, I wrote a short critique of Elon Musk’s DOGE attack on USAID. I posted it on my blog and social media, including my feed on X (formerly Twitter). Almost immediately, Musk’s AI chatbot, called Grok, appeared in my X feed. Grok now comments on everything I write on X.

This experience demonstrates the power of AI in surveillance and communication. I imagine that Grok was programmed to be on the look-out for posts that criticize what Musk is doing, and chatbots can quickly churn out analysis on any issue.

What Grok wrote on my X feed wasn’t inaccurate. But if I maintain my feed on X, I’ll need to review Grok’s response every time I post. Chatbots like Grok can be programmed with ideological biases. Musk says that Grok is now programmed to be “balanced,” but Grok could be reprogrammed to contradict posts that aren’t aligned with Musk’s views. 

Finally, I must add an update on last Monday’s post.

USAID announced last night that it has put 4,700 employees on administrative leave and plans to fire 1,600 of them. A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration should end the 90-day pause in foreign assistance that President Trump ordered, but the administration has so far failed to comply with the judge’s ruling. 

The damage that has already been done to the rule of law in our country, U.S. leadership in the world, and progress against global poverty is immense.

Illegal, Immoral, and Incompetent

DOGE’s attack on U.S. foreign assistance ignored the laws that established and authorized the current operations of USAID. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to undo some of the damage, USAID no longer had staff in place to manage the process. The courts have ordered the Administration to restore the operations of USAID. 

The church leaders in the Circle of Protection have written to Secretary Rubio and Members of Congress, citing specific examples of how hungry and poor people around the world have been adversely affected. Read their letter here.

The disruption of food aid in near-famine situations and life-supporting medication for people with HIV-AIDS have already resulted in deaths.

Urging Mercy for Low-income Americans

If one or more of your Members of Congress are Republicans, urge them not to cut funding or make damaging changes to Medicaid, SNAP, and other low-income programs.

Republicans now control the White House and both houses of Congress. But they have yet to agree among themselves on their legislative goals. They are likely to push for deep cuts and damaging changes in Medicaid, SNAP, and other low-income programs.

The chair of the House Budget Committee has suggested a possible $5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, mainly $3.5 billion from Medicaid (health care for poor and low-income people) and another $300 billion from SNAP (nutrition assistance for people in poverty). Millions more Americans would be unable to afford the health care they need. Hunger among America’s children would become more severe and widespread. 

President Trump’s priorities are a big tax cut, mainly for high-income people, and funding for his merciless program of deportation and border control. The proposed cuts to programs that help people in need would help to pay for these priorities.

Catholics and a wide array of Protestants of many varieties, working with other groups, pushed back against a massive political attack on poverty-focused programs between 2011 and 2017.  Republicans have even more power now, and their attack of poor and vulnerable people is more radical.  Yet there are only three more Republicans than Democrats in the House of Representatives, and Republicans hold only 53 or the 100 seats in the Senate. 

If concerned citizens convince just a few Republicans to take exception to making struggling Americans poorer, we might be able to block or moderate this planned attack on hungry and poor people. 

Explain how your faith shapes your views on this issue. According to the Pew Research Center, 87 percent of the voting members of our new Congress are Christian. Speak from the Bible about God’s love for all people, especially for people who are hungry or need healing.

Photo: Bread for the World