AI Ponders the "Fitness for Office" memo

More on Musk, DOGE, The Emperor, and AI analysis

Following up on my recent The Emperor’s New DOGE post, I gave ChatGPT 4.5 and Claude 3.7 today’s two long New York Times pieces, here and here, about Elon Musk, DOGE, and the request for federal workers to write a memo detailing their accomplishments. I asked each AI model to consider what Musk was doing in the context of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, which turns on rogue weavers weaving invisible clothes that only courtiers who are “fit for their office” are able to see:

"Those would be just the clothes for me," thought the Emperor. "If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools. Yes, I certainly must get some of the stuff woven for me right away." He paid the two swindlers a large sum of money to start work at once.

Here are the unedited responses, so you can compare their reasoning. Here, first, is ChatGPT 4.5, which Pro users have early access to:

Musk Emperor Essay

In Hans Christian Andersen's timeless tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes," two rogue weavers convince an emperor that they have created garments invisible to those unfit for their roles. Only the wise, competent, and loyal can see the clothes, they insist. Similarly, Elon Musk's recent incursion into the federal bureaucracy is a modern-day reimagining of this cautionary story.

Much like Andersen's weavers, Musk suggested the sprawling federal bureaucracy was bloated and inefficient, populated by individuals possibly "unfit for their jobs." His directive, circulated through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), required federal employees to submit weekly accounts of their work accomplishments in a simple five-bullet email. The memo explicitly instructed: "Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59 p.m. EST." Musk provocatively insinuated that some federal employees might even be nonexistent or deceased, stating, “What we are trying to get to the bottom of is, we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond.”

Federal workers, like Andersen’s anxious townspeople, quickly felt compelled to affirm their worthiness and productivity. Confusion and anxiety swept through agencies. The New York Times reported that some leaders feared compliance might inadvertently expose sensitive information. Still, the OPM memo urged agencies to evaluate nonresponses seriously, noting: "Agencies should consider whether the expectation for employees to submit activity and/or accomplishment bullets should be integrated into the agency’s Weekly Activity Report… Furthermore, agencies should consider any appropriate actions regarding employees who fail to respond." The implicit threat of review and potential dismissal heightened the pressure to comply, reinforcing an atmosphere of performance and fear.

Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, mirrored the emperor's belief in the invisible cloth. Embedding loyalists within the government’s digital infrastructure, Musk engineered a takeover that drew power from the fear of exposure and the performance of allegiance. His public ridicule of bureaucratic inefficiency acted like the weavers’ magical thread, intangible yet commanding. Employees and officials, caught in the whirlwind, began performing obedience, desperately asserting their visibility and utility through compliance with Musk’s demands.

Yet beneath this spectacle lurked a deeper truth: much like Andersen’s emperor, the bureaucracy risked being stripped bare by a leader whose own credentials to judge their worthiness remained profoundly questionable. Musk’s radical dismantling strategy, which involved intrusive surveillance of federal databases and coercive workforce culling tactics, had all the markers of invisible garments—ostensibly brilliant but potentially illusory and deeply harmful.

Ultimately, Andersen’s fable warns us about the perils of vanity, power, and collective denial. Musk’s actions, dressed up in the cloak of reform and efficiency, invite a similar caution. Who, amid the pressure to perform obedience, will dare to be the child in the crowd, boldly pointing out that the emperor—this time clothed in innovation and disruption—may, in fact, be naked.

I was not impressed. What kind of reasoning is ChatGPT actually doing here? Not much. It seems to be posturing. I asked 4.5: “Do you really think this is what is happening? What is Andersen's essay really teaching us? Who would be the little boy if Musk is the rogue weaver?”

4.5 replied: “That's a thoughtful point. Andersen's story isn't simply about deception or trickery—it's fundamentally about collective self-delusion, driven by fear and pride. The rogue weavers exploit human insecurities and vanity; the emperor, his ministers, and the townspeople go along with the fiction, not just because they've been deceived, but because they fear appearing inadequate or foolish. In the case of Musk's actions, what may be happening isn't just deception by a powerful figure, but a scenario in which many people may feel compelled to play along, afraid of revealing incompetence or being judged as unnecessary. The federal workers are caught in this dilemma, asked to demonstrate their productivity publicly or risk exposure and dismissal. The system begins to perpetuate itself—people comply because they're scared of being seen as ‘unfit.’”

Sure but this isn’t reasoning, it’s repetition. We had a few more back and forths and I simply gave up. I accused it of “tying things up with a bow” and we had words. Most of my relationships end like this.

Here, by contrast, is Claude 3.7, given the same assignment.

The Emperor's New Bureaucracy: Musk's "Fitness for Office" Test and the Politics of Performative Efficiency

The fundamental tension in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes" centers on a fabricated test of "fitness for office" - the assertion that only those competent and worthy of their positions could see the nonexistent garments. This same psychological mechanism lies at the heart of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, creating a modern parallel with profound implications for democratic governance.

Musk's directive, as circulated through the Office of Personnel Management, established a clear fitness test: federal employees must document their productivity in weekly five-bullet emails or potentially face termination. The memo states explicitly: "Agencies should consider any appropriate actions regarding employees who fail to respond." This language creates a binary framework remarkably similar to the weavers' claim - compliance demonstrates worthiness; non-compliance reveals unfitness.

The fitness test gained additional force through Musk's public statements. "What we are trying to get to the bottom of is, we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can't respond," he told a cabinet meeting. This provocative claim transformed a simple administrative request into an existential evaluation - employees must prove not just their productivity but their very existence and legitimacy.

The structure of this test places federal workers in the same psychological bind as Andersen's townspeople. Their competence, value, and right to employment become contingent on performing visible compliance with an arbitrary standard. Responding with five bullet points becomes less about documenting actual work and more about performing obedience to demonstrate fitness for continued employment. This creates precisely the conditions for collective performance that animated Andersen's cautionary tale.

What makes Musk's approach particularly potent is his strategic positioning within government systems. The New York Times reporting reveals his team has "embedded engineers and aides inside the government's critical digital infrastructure," gaining access to numerous sensitive databases while establishing a unit strategically insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests. This gives him unprecedented visibility into government operations while maintaining operational opacity - a one-way mirror that heightens the surveillance aspect of the fitness test.

The implementation of this test has followed a familiar Silicon Valley playbook. As an aide described Musk's approach at Twitter: "Steve [Davis] is like chemo. A little chemo can save your life; a lot of chemo could kill you." This scorched-earth approach to workforce culling, successful in private enterprise, now targets a civil service system designed with deliberate protections against exactly such politically-motivated purges.

Judge William Alsup's ruling represents a significant challenge to this fitness paradigm. By declaring that OPM "does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute—in the history of the universe—to hire and fire employees within another agency," he effectively named the invisible garment for what it was - an assertion of authority without legal foundation. Yet unlike in Andersen's tale, this declaration has not immediately halted the pageant. Agencies simply adjusted, sending similar demands from their own HR departments rather than OPM.

This administrative persistence reveals a sophisticated understanding of institutional vulnerabilities. The operation has demonstrated remarkable adaptability, shifting tactics when confronted with legal barriers while maintaining its strategic direction. When Judge Alsup ruled that OPM memos directing mass firings were illegal, the initiative simply rerouted its demands through different channels.

The rapid implementation of these measures suggests a deeper vulnerability in democratic institutions than previously recognized. As detailed in the Times reporting, Musk's operation has already "pushed out workers, ignored civil service protections, torn up contracts and effectively shuttered an entire agency established by Congress." These actions, undertaken with presidential backing, demonstrate how quickly established norms and protections can be circumvented.

What separates this situation from Andersen's simple morality tale is that Musk appears to genuinely believe in his mission. The documents indicate he views himself as a revolutionary reformer trying to "restore democracy from the dictatorship of the bureaucracy." This conviction transforms him into a more complex figure than either Andersen's cynical weavers or vain emperor - he is simultaneously weaver and emperor, creating a test he himself believes in.

The ongoing conflict between judicial declarations of illegality and continued operational momentum represents the true threat to democratic governance. Unlike Andersen's tale, which concludes with the emperor's humiliation and presumably a restoration of truth, this real-world situation has no guaranteed narrative arc toward resolution. The operation is "moving faster than many of the legal efforts to stop it, making drastic changes that could be hard to unwind even if they are ultimately constrained by the courts."

This fitness test ultimately reveals not merely a challenge to bureaucratic efficiency but a fundamental contestation over the nature of democratic governance itself. The question is whether our system contains sufficient resilience to maintain its essential character when confronted with determined actors operating at the boundaries of established authority with the protection of executive power. The cautionary element of both narratives remains the same: collective silence in the face of institutional manipulation facilitates the erosion of shared reality and democratic norms.

Claude concludes that Musk is “simultaneously weaver and emperor, creating a test he himself believes in.” This is some fine reasoning.

Take what you want from this post. I think there’s a lot going on with DOGE and “fitness for office” but perhaps the most important part is what Claude 3.7 sees and ChatGPT 4.5 doesn’t help us see. I just gave each two articles and an idea. I’m super impressed with Claude. Plus, I think it’s right about Musk.

The illustration is from Marshall McCluhan’s The Medium is the Massage (1967). The analysis is wrong, but the picture is great.