A GOP congressperson in Georgia, who identified himself as a doctor, actually said that the massive firings and downsizing of healthcare and public health workers at the CDC are justified because those people can be replaced by chatbots.
GOP congressman faces criticism and several boos at Georgia town hall By Shania Shelton, CNN Updated 10:18 AM EST, Fri February 21, 2025 “I’m in close contact with the CDC. They have about what, 13,000 employees, 13,000 employees at the CDC. In the last couple years, those probationary people, which is about 10% of their employee base, about 1,300 people, which you’re referring to. A lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI,” McCormick said. The mention of AI led to “no’s” and murmurs from the crowd, leading the Republican representative to say, “I happen to be a doctor. I know a few things.”
It’s important to specify that in civil service, “probationary” is not a negative status, and it doesn’t necessarily mean just “new hires” – it includes sometimes experienced workers who’ve recently been promoted to a new position. So if that’s the case nobody should assume all these workers in probation status are just new hires – and that would be bad enough, because government agencies rarely do hiring until it’s desperately needed to accomplish the work.
It’s pretty shocking that a doctor would ever suggest that the health of humans, and decisions on public health, should ever be trusted to faulty AI chatbots that tend to put out faulty information and according to actual healthcare workers it can be incredibly dangerous for patients, and also healthcare workers. And I think AI chatbots should NOT be doing the people’s business – that should be done by people! But apparently Rich Mccormick also came out as pro-child labor at this town hall. That Brownstone Institute guy had endorsed child labor. Odd how these things go together, isn’t it.