Elon Musk is requiring all federal workers to write an email with five things they did in the past week—a task that seems like it will be required every week for the foreseeable future. But if you work for the government and would rather have a computer do that for you, there’s a new website that will auto-generate responses just generalized enough to seem plausible.
The website, called OPM Reply, was recently featured on r/FedEmployees and is pretty bare-bones. The site asks for a job description, and that alone creates a list of five items that would technically fulfill Musk’s demand.
For example, we wrote in “air traffic controller,” which created the list below:
- Monitored and directed aircraft movements to ensure safe and efficient air traffic flow.
- Coordinated with pilots and ground crews to manage takeoffs, landings, and taxiing operations.
- Responded to and resolved in-flight emergencies and unexpected changes in flight plans.
- Maintained clear and concise communication with multiple aircraft and control centers.
- Conducted routine checks of radar and communication systems to ensure operational readiness.
As the website explains, “OPM is requiring weekly emails from government employees listing their accomplishments. OPM reply is for workers who are too busy accomplishing things to write these emails.”
The subreddit’s users note that you can put in any non-sensical job and it will still pump out a response. You can try it for yourself with any input you like, from “Elon Musk’s dealer” to “Donald Trump’s Coke button.” The more ridiculous, the more generalized the output seems to be, however. But if the AI picks up a word for a job it recognizes, the output will make some sense.
For example, the results for “Stephen Miller’s botanist”:
- Conducted routine care and maintenance of plant specimens, including watering, pruning, and fertilizing.
- Monitored plant health and identified any signs of disease or pest infestations.
- Collected and analyzed data on plant growth and environmental conditions.
- Assisted in the propagation of new plants through seeding, grafting, or cloning techniques.
- Updated records and documentation for research projects and inventory management.
This is a fun little tool, of course, but the fact that Musk is still requiring a response to this question is serious business. The oligarch has previously suggested that anyone who doesn’t respond will be fired. And national security experts are worried that requiring this list will essentially create a roadmap for any foreign adversary that wants insight into the structure of the U.S. government.
Most workers in sensitive jobs are being told not to reveal details of their work, which is good, but as anyone who works in security knows, metadata is itself very revealing. If you have an email list of everyone who works in a given department at the CIA or NSA and even a generalized list of what they do, you can start making inferences that put the safety and security of the U.S. at risk. Even revealing organizational maps at places like the CDC or USDA can provide sensitive information that would be valuable to any geopolitical adversary.
But maybe that doesn’t matter anymore. President Trump has been in office for only a month, but the U.S. now appears to be in alignment with Russia and in opposition to the liberal democracies of the world. Trump has called Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a dictator and has suspended all aid to Ukraine, a move that helps Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Goofy websites like OPM Reply are fun, but somebody is going to have to stop Musk and Trump if this country is going to survive as a liberal democracy. Every day this is allowed to continue makes Americans less safe.
