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America.gov

778 points · 742 comments · plesiv

  1. maherbeg · · focus · HN ↗
    OK, there's a lot of negative comments here, but this is a great idea at a high level. It really is hard to figure out where to do a thing and it's also very easy to get phished. If they can figure out how to help people get all the services they're eligible for that'll be an amazing improvement for the people.
    1. gthrow12345 · · focus · HN ↗
      I agree in general, but how do you resolve the problem that people will take the output of the chatbot as authoritative even when it could possibly have errors or miss important nuance? People being lead astray with information from the government could lead to very serious consequences, up to and including imprisonment.

      Honest question, I had the same issue when my work wanted me to stick a chatbot in front of our HR portal and I never resolved it to my satisfaction.

      1. rayiner · · focus · HN ↗
        > but how do you resolve the problem that people will take the output of the chatbot as authoritative even when it could possibly have errors or miss important nuance

        You have to measure that problem against the status quo, which is that current government websites are very hard to understand and leave people with very little idea of what’s going on.

        1. andrewflnr · · focus · HN ↗
          One of the only things more dangerous than ignorance is false confidence. An official USG chatbot potentially makes things much worse.
          1. maxk42 · · focus · HN ↗
            The status quo is people googling shit, finding either legalese they can't understand (but maybe think that they do) or information that was legitimate ten years ago (and is dangerously inaccurate today). If I ask a question and get an answer that's been inaccurate for years I'm going to have as much or more false confidence as an AI bot that misunderstands the source. The difference is the AI bot gets better with time instead of worse. It may not be perfect but it's a step in the right direction: Let them cook.
            1. andrewflnr · · focus · HN ↗
              No, someone who gets a bad answer from a random source is not going to have as much false confidence as someone who gets bad advice from a .gov domain.
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