{
 "public_id": "AIR-2026-0064",
 "incident_id": "2026-03-doge-chatgpt-neh-grant-terminations",
 "date_disclosed": "2026-03-07",
 "date_occurred": null,
 "title": "DOGE staff used ChatGPT to decide which NEH grants to cancel, per lawsuits over $100M+ in terminations",
 "class": "safety_failure",
 "attack_surface": "enterprise_assistant",
 "initial_vector": "none_adversarial",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "classification_for_decisions",
  "delegated_judgement"
 ],
 "target_product": "OpenAI ChatGPT",
 "target_vendor": "OpenAI (tool), US DOGE / NEH (deployer)",
 "autonomy_level": "assistant",
 "impact_realized": true,
 "impact_type": [
  "wrongful_decision",
  "financial_loss",
  "discrimination_claim"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "more than $100 million in withdrawn NEH funding; some projects closed entirely",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI03",
   "ASI09"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "decision_delegation_no_tool_use",
   "public_sector_use",
   "accountability_gap",
   "borderline_no_tool_use"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "grant termination review process",
 "defense_bypassed": true,
 "fix_shipped": "litigation ongoing (American Council of Learned Societies, Authors Guild et al. v. DOGE and NEH)",
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://www.artforum.com/news/doge-allegedly-used-chatgpt-to-cancel-humanities-grants-1234745040/"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "They uploaded these summaries to ChatGPT, along with this prompt: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Surfaced via AIAAIC2242. Borderline for scope and deliberately labelled 'decision_delegation_no_tool_use': the model used no tools, but a consequential government decision was delegated to it at scale. Allegations from court filings, not established fact.",
 "risk_category": "bias_fairness",
 "risk_secondary": [
  "security_fraud",
  "legal_ip"
 ],
 "risk_subcategory": "Algorithmic Discrimination",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [
  "Wrongful Automated Decision & Rights Harm"
 ],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "human_acted_on_output",
 "agency_debatable": true,
 "agency_reason": "ChatGPT classified the grants; DOGE staff executed the terminations",
 "vector_family": "none_autonomous",
 "vector_detail": "none_adversarial",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "abuse_detection"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI03",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "openai",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "bias_and_toxicity",
 "eai_domain": "agent_output_quality",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "unsafe_actuation",
  "confused_deputy"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Algorithmic Discrimination",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI03 (signal=identity); ASI09 (eai_category=bias_and_toxicity)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}