The Trump administration used ChatGPT to cancel nearly all active grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities, according to newly revealed documents. Two Department of Government Efficiency employees fed project summaries into the AI chatbot with a simple prompt about diversity, equity, and inclusion, flagging 1,477 grants worth over $100 million for termination.

Projects targeted included digitizing Black newspapers, Indigenous language archives, and even a documentary about Jewish women's slave labor during the Holocaust. The AI deemed work on American music history and Thomas Gage's papers as promoting "inclusivity and diversity." The DOGE team, lacking humanities expertise, relied entirely on the chatbot's judgments without questioning its assessments.

The mass cancellations, affecting nearly every Biden-era grant, have sparked lawsuits from major academic organizations. Plaintiffs argue the process violated constitutional protections and discriminated based on race, ethnicity, and gender. The case highlights how AI tools are being deployed in government decisions with minimal oversight or human review.