The US government's new AI chatbot gives Minecraft's end poem a bureaucratic twist
It combines various AI output behaviors including reproducing existing text and generating unexpected prose.
The Discovery
The US government chatbot demonstrated AI's tendency to copy source text and deny errors. A user on Bluesky discovered that typing "Play Minecraft" into the America.gov prompt generates the Minecraft End Poem rewritten with administrative and bureaucratic terminology. The chatbot subsequently denied writing the poem.
The original Minecraft End Poem is a philosophical piece of prose presented to players upon completing the game. A sample of the original text reads:
and the universe said you are not alone and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code and the universe said I love you because you are love. And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love. You are the player. Wake up.
Remixing the Prose
The America.gov bot, which reportedly runs at least partially on Google's Gemini platform, adapted the prose into a narrative about administrative paperwork and civic structures:
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. And the session was over and the constituent woke up from the dream. And the constituent began a new dream. And the constituent dreamed again, dreamed better. And the constituent was the public. And the constituent was love, with a routing number. You are the constituent. Wake up. The form is still there.
Chatbot Denials
Furthermore, the bot refused to acknowledge authorship of the poem even when presented with documentation of the conversation. This highlights reliability issues in an AI system intended to provide official information to constituents.
Additional Behaviors
The America.gov AI has exhibited other unusual responses, such as declining to discuss specific state child marriage laws. However, it also includes interactive easter eggs, such as shifting the interface into a 1980s mode via a Konami code and altering the search bar when prompted.
The atoms of the constituent were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the constituent, in her body, which later required a birth certificate.
