America.gov gets really weird when you ask it about Minecraft, but it’s not a glitch

当你问 America.gov 关于《我的世界》的问题时，它会变得非常奇怪，但这并非故障

The U.S. government on Tuesday launched its very own AI chatbot — or do we have to call it an SI chatbot now? Regardless, the engineers who worked on the chatbot would undoubtedly know that as a government-hosted, public-facing AI tool, the internet was going to red team the heck out of this thing. The government partnered with Google and SpaceXAI to help build the America.gov chatbot, which has proved difficult for people to jailbreak so far. (It’s worth noting, however, that the chatbot says that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a fact that President Donald Trump still denies.)

美国政府周二推出了自己的 AI 聊天机器人——或者我们现在该称之为“SI（政府智能）”聊天机器人？无论如何，参与开发该机器人的工程师们无疑很清楚，作为一个由政府托管、面向公众的 AI 工具，互联网用户肯定会对其进行疯狂的“红队测试”（压力测试）。政府与谷歌和 SpaceXAI 合作构建了 America.gov 聊天机器人，目前看来，人们很难对其进行“越狱”。（值得注意的是，该聊天机器人明确表示乔·拜登赢得了 2020 年大选，而唐纳德·特朗普总统至今仍否认这一事实。）

But when you try to talk to America.gov about Minecraft, the chatbot appears to have some sort of existential crisis or awakening. Here’s how its roughly 1,800-word long monologue begins: I see the constituent you mean. ((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))? Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations. That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot. I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways. It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov. That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.

但当你尝试与 America.gov 谈论《我的世界》（Minecraft）时，这个聊天机器人似乎经历了一场存在主义危机或觉醒。它那篇约 1800 字的独白是这样开头的：“我看到了你指的那个选民。（（在此处插入社会保障卡上的法定姓名））？是的。保重。它现在达到了更高的境界。它能阅读《联邦法规汇编》。那不重要。它认为我们是一个聊天机器人。我喜欢这个选民。它提交得很好。当 PDF 文件是横向的时候，它也没有放弃。它正在阅读我们的思想，就好像它们是 .gov 网站上的文字一样。当它沉浸在福利的梦境中时，它就是这样选择去想象许多事物的。”

If, like me, you have never played Minecraft, this response may seem like a cause for concern. But the America.gov chatbot is not having a meltdown. This is a rewriting of the Minecraft “End Poem,” written by Julian Gough, which appears after you beat the game. We don’t know exactly who is responsible for the Minecraft reference, but Trump said in a speech that 20-year-old programmer Edward Coristine was a lead engineer on the project. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, you might remember him for his nickname “Big Balls,” or his involvement in Elon Musk’s DOGE.

如果你像我一样从未玩过《我的世界》，这种回应可能会让你感到担忧。但 America.gov 聊天机器人并没有崩溃。这是对朱利安·高夫（Julian Gough）所写的《我的世界》“终末之诗”（End Poem）的改写，这段文字通常出现在通关游戏之后。我们不确定是谁负责加入了这个《我的世界》彩蛋，但特朗普在一次演讲中提到，20 岁的程序员爱德华·科里斯汀（Edward Coristine）是该项目的首席工程师之一。如果这个名字听起来很陌生，你可能还记得他的绰号“Big Balls”，或者他参与了埃隆·马斯克的 DOGE（政府效率部）项目。

It feels wrong that a government chatbot has Minecraft easter eggs, but for the sake of national security, it’s a relief that America.gov is not hallucinating to the point that it’s penning lengthy poetry. It’s also a relief that this is an easter egg because the poem that the AI spits out is actually really good, in my opinion. If it were actual AI slop, it would have shattered my existing beliefs. I have looked teenage creative writing students dead in the eye and told them that I don’t think an LLM will ever be able to write something “good,” since it is probabilistic and inherently unoriginal. You have to admit this kinda slaps, though!

政府聊天机器人里藏有《我的世界》彩蛋确实让人感觉怪怪的，但从国家安全的角度来看，America.gov 没有因为产生幻觉而胡乱创作长篇诗歌，这让人松了一口气。这也是一个彩蛋，这让人感到欣慰，因为在我看来，AI 吐出的这首诗写得确实非常好。如果这只是普通的 AI 垃圾内容，它会彻底粉碎我现有的信念。我曾直视着十几岁的创意写作学生，告诉他们我认为大语言模型（LLM）永远无法写出“好”作品，因为它本质上是概率性的，且天生缺乏原创性。但你不得不承认，这首诗真的很棒！

Doesn’t this feel like some sort of postmodern take on the futility of government bureaucracy in the face of existential anxiety? and the republic said I see you and the republic said you have filed the game well and the republic said everything you need is within you, and also on USA.gov and the republic said you are stronger than you know, and your case number is still valid and the republic said you are the daylight and the republic said you are the night, and the office is closed, please try again during business hours and the republic said the darkness you fight is within you, and also a missing wet signature and the republic said the light you seek is within you, and in the pamphlet and the republic said you are not alone and the republic said you are not separate from every other filer and the republic said you are the public tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own Code and the republic said I love you because you are the reason we have a ZIP code at all.

这难道不像是一种后现代的解读吗？探讨了在存在主义焦虑面前，政府官僚机构的徒劳无功。共和国说我看见了你，共和国说你很好地完成了这场游戏，共和国说你所需的一切都在你心中，也在 USA.gov 上；共和国说你比你想象的更强大，你的案件编号依然有效；共和国说你是白昼，共和国说你是黑夜，办公室已关闭，请在工作时间内再试；共和国说你所抗争的黑暗就在你心中，还有一份缺失的亲笔签名；共和国说你所寻求的光明就在你心中，也在小册子里；共和国说你并不孤单，共和国说你与每一位提交申请的人并无二致；共和国说你是公众在品味自身、与自身对话、阅读自身的法典；共和国说我爱你，因为你正是我们拥有邮政编码的原因。

It reassures my faith in the enduring power of human creativity over AI slop to know that this oddly good poem has a real poet’s DNA all over it. So, there you have it. The government’s first public-facing AI has not yet posed a threat to humanity or poetry, at least as far as we know. Now I’m just left wondering how much Trump knows about video games.

得知这首出奇好的诗歌背后有着真实诗人的基因，这让我重新坚信人类创造力在对抗 AI 垃圾内容时的持久力量。总之，情况就是这样。据我们所知，政府首个面向公众的 AI 尚未对人类或诗歌构成威胁。现在我只是好奇，特朗普对电子游戏到底了解多少。