This will be epically bad if the Australian “robodebt” saga is any indicator. Robodebt was a government software solution that would automate previously manual assessments for overpayment and issuance of debt notices to welfare recipients. It’s exactly the kind of scheme that the new US government would be keen to implement. Claw back welfare overpayments and do it while reducing the size of the public service. What’s not to love?
Well, it didn’t work out so well for the government that implemented it and some of the lessons that came out of it should serve as a warning to any government seeking to go down the same path.
Note: given Australia is less than a tenth the population of the US, add a zero to all the numbers in the article to get a proportionate sense of scale.