Musk’s plan to replace government workers with AI could create chaos

Billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to cut $2 trillion in US government spending apparently includes replacing tens of thousands of federal workers with AI, but the move could produce disastrous results, several AI experts say.

President Donald Trump’s administration has already laid off about 10,000 federal workers after Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have gained access to internal agency information. Musk has claimed, without extensive evidence, that he’s found massive amounts of fraud and government waste.

The ultimate goal of Musk and DOGE is to replace “the human workforce with machines,” says a US official monitoring the cost-cutting activities. “Everything that can be machine-automated will be,” the official tells the Washington Post. “And the technocrats will replace the bureaucrats.”

However, the plan has flaws, at least in the short term, IT experts say. AI may be able to replace some federal workers now and many more in the future, but the technology isn’t ready to make judgment calls about benefits and other complex decisions, they say.

“The wholesale replacement of government workers with AI is a seductive but dangerous fantasy that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how government actually works,” says Deborah Perry Piscione, co-founder and CEO of the Work3 Institute, an advisory firm focused on AI and the future of work. “While AI could certainly streamline some mundane paperwork, the notion of replacing tens of thousands of civil servants with algorithms betrays a Silicon Valley–style technological solutionism that could devastate public services.”

Piscione can envision an AI chatbot that doesn’t understand the unique situation of a military veteran applying for benefits or an immigrant facing deportation because an AI misinterpreted their documentation.

“These aren’t hypothetical scenarios — they’re the inevitable result of treating government service as merely a data-processing problem,” says Piscione, author of the new book Employment Is Dead: How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work.

Some replacements now possible

Right now, AI can replace some data processing, compliance checking, and customer service roles, says Manuj Aggarwal, founder and CIO at TetraNoodle Technologies, a digital transformation company focused on AI and other emerging technologies.

However, there are many other types of jobs in government. “Government work isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about understanding people, making judgment calls, and building trust,” he says. “AI can process data, but it can’t empathize, negotiate, or truly connect with citizens.”

In addition to data processing and customer service roles, AI can now save the US government a significant amount of money by automating fraud detection and claims processing, adds Amir Barsoum, founder and managing partner at AI-focused venture capital firm InVitro Capital.

Barsoum believes Musk’s plan to replace federal workers with AI can work. “A leaner government enhances efficiency, flexibility, and faster decision-making by reducing bureaucracy and forcing agencies to do more with less — ultimately improving service quality,” he says.

However, the replacement of government workers should happen slowly, he adds, beginning with simple administrative roles that do not involve critical decision-making.

“The key question to evaluate here is whether AI will produce fewer errors than humans,” Barsoum says. “These systems should not be deployed unless they demonstrate significantly higher accuracy than what we already have in place.”

Who provides oversight?

Governments will eventually realize the limitations of AI, and they will hire new people to focus on human connection rather than paperwork, Aggarwal adds. For the jobs replaced by AI, agencies will still need to provide oversight and accountability.

“We will need to ensure that humans are always kept in the loop,” he adds. “AI is very smart but not infallible. AI mistakes could disrupt essential services, and the consequences could be severe without proper monitoring.”

It’s unclear how the Trump administration would monitor the AI tools that replace jobs, says Nick Spivak, head of business development at web development firm IT Monks. There doesn’t appear a plan in place to fix when an algorithm makes a bad call.

“AI can improve government efficiency, but replacing tens of thousands of employees with automated systems is like replacing a highway’s traffic control with self-driving cars that have yet to pass their road test,” he says. “It might work in theory, but when things go wrong, they go very wrong.”

There’s a huge potential for problems when the AIs go beyond repetitive tasks such as data processing and start making judgement calls, Spivak says. When government AI systems make errors, people will be stuck in “endless loops” when appealing decisions not made by humans.

“Government decisions impact real lives, and AI is not built for human reasoning, context, or accountability,” he says. “A mistake in processing a loan is frustrating. A mistake in processing disability benefits or immigration status is life changing.”

Still, a significant replacement of government workers with AI is “inevitable” over the long term, says Work3’s Piscione. About 20% of federal employees work in clerical or administrative roles that AI could handle today, and AI could eliminate backlogs plaguing many government offices, she says.

“The reflexive pushback against AI replacement stems from a romantic but outdated view of government work,” she adds. “Critics paint scenarios of vulnerable citizens struggling with soulless machines, but they ignore the reality that many citizens already struggle with overworked, inconsistent human bureaucrats.”

Right now, Social Security administrators “mechanically” apply benefit formulas, IRS agents answer the same question thousands of times, and a huge number of clerks push papers through predetermined workflows, she says.

“While critics paint this as a dystopian fantasy, they’re ignoring the massive inefficiencies that plague our bureaucracy and the striking capabilities of current AI technology,” Piscione says. “Let’s be brutally honest: Roughly 30% of government jobs are little more than human computers, processing forms and following rigid rules that machines could execute far more efficiently.”