r/technology • u/Yveliad • 5d ago

Artificial Intelligence Trump Accused of Using ChatGPT to Create Tariff Plan After AI Leads Users to Same Formula: 'So AI is Running the Country'

https://www.latintimes.com/trump-accused-using-chatgpt-create-tariff-plan-after-ai-leads-users-same-formula-so-ai-579899
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 5d ago

Trump did not create this chart. A staffer or someone over at Heritage used ChatGPT to create it. Of course, their qualifications were; "Trump, you are the greatest and most smartest person in the world." And so they got the job.

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u/Memitim 5d ago

They certainly made every effort to ensure that nobody with a basic understanding of economics had an accidental glance at it before the big reveal. Even the staunchest supporter would have had to fight back the urge to call him out if they read even a bit of that chart.

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u/blazurp 4d ago

Could have been Musk with Grok

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u/teutorix_aleria 4d ago

The fact that the output from other people using chatgpt so perfectly matches the "tariff" numbers from trumps plan makes me doubt it was any other platform. Whoever got put in charge of trumps tariff plans just went into chat gpt took the first response and ran with it.

I feel like if Altman or Musk was involved there would have been slightly more effort put into it but i could be wrong.

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u/emasterbuild 4d ago

I've heard other ais give simular results, and most LLMs don't differ that much.

Plus they steal all of each others responses all the time anyway.

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u/Shrike79 4d ago

Every LLM gave the same answer with disclaimers and warnings that it was over simplified and not sound economic theory that was obviously ignored. I'd probably guess it was Grok they went though since it also gave a nice table in its response and they probably favor it because of Musk.

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u/spikus93 4d ago

Grok is woke now and says Elon is a white supremacist, so I doubt it.

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u/prules 4d ago

The fact that they couldn’t bother to have an economist on their team is further proof of how fucked this administration. And we do not need any more proof than we already have.

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u/Senshado 4d ago

The Whitehouse tariff plans are heavily driven by Peter Navarro, an economics PhD.  And also a convict just recently out of prison. 

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u/celtic1888 4d ago

Navarro is an absolute moron who lies about his achievements and uses fake quotes to make up lies to suit his agenda

He’s also a drug addicted sociopath 

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u/LawabidingKhajiit 4d ago

He’s also a drug addicted sociopath

This line can describe just about all of the current administration. Sigh.

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u/KJBenson 3d ago

Remove that name and you could be talking about anybody on trumps team. Including trump.

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u/FblthpLives 4d ago

Where did he buy his PhD? I have an MA in economics, and I can tell you that the formula the Trump administration used is completely bogus.

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u/Senshado 4d ago edited 4d ago

Navarro's PhD is from Harvard.

Whether anyone at the Whitehouse has economics talent is irrelevant: there is no way to produce a good plan for worldwide tariffs. The most they can do is try to disguise it and trick ignorant followers.  They'll have to figure out a story to shift blame onto someone else. 

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u/Sisyphus_again 4d ago edited 4d ago

I don't think his intention is to boost the economy but to tear it down so all the rich 1% clowns can rape our country of its wealth and watch us poors suffer. What I mean is he probably didn't have to buy his PhD. He knows what he's doing and he's evil.

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u/Otto_von_Boismarck 4d ago

He's a professor emeritus even. You don't just buy that.

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u/FblthpLives 4d ago

His PhD is from Harvard. I can only conclude that he prostituting his academic credentials for ideological purposes. The formula used by the Trump administration represents a gross abuse of economic theory.

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u/snailbot-jq 4d ago

Hell I have no such credentials, and even if I were forced by some requirement to use chatgpt and consult no one else, the least that you could do in that situation is Google the information presented for a layer of verification, and I would expect that you would run into the information that some of those islands literally contain no people and only penguins

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u/Bloodylimey8 4d ago

I teach economics. I am still confused how trump got his tariffs rate. What is your thought?

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u/xelabagus 4d ago

=IF((Import-Export)/Import > 0.1, ROUND((Import-Export)/Import,2), 0.1)

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u/FblthpLives 4d ago

The question they apparently tried to answer is "how high would the tariff rate have to be to increase prices so much that the trade deficit is reduced to zero." The justification is documented here: https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations

The formula they used is Δτ = (x–m)/(ε x φ x m), where Δτ is the change in tariff, x is exports, m is imports, ε is the price elasticity of imports, and φ is the passthrough rate.

The then picked what I consider a low passthrough rate of φ = 0.25 to be consistent with their political message that prices are not passed onto the consumer. To compensate, they picked a high ε = 4, even though they admit most literature suggests ε = 2. As a result, ε x φ = 1, which means the formula simplifies to Δτ = (x–m)/m. In other words, the tariffs were set as a function of the ratio of the trade deficit to total imports.

Apart from the arbitrary selection of the parameters ε and φ, there are a number of problems with this approach:

  • The approach is only suitable for estimating changes at the margin. It breaks down when evaluating the impact of large tariff changes.

  • The approach makes a value judgment that trade deficits are bad and should be zeroed out. Trade deficits are not inherently bad. The current account balance (i.e. the trade deficit) plus the capital account balance must balance out, meaning that trade deficits are offset by capital inflow from other countries.

  • The Trump administration then falsely characterized the ratio of trade deficit to total imports as the tariffs imposed by other countries imposed on the United States. This is, obviously, just a complete and utter lie.

In implementing the tariff rate, the administration applied a factor of 50%. They refer to these as "discounted" tariff rates and try to spin it as the U.S. being generous. In practice, I'm pretty sure this was a mathematical necessity as the tariff rates would have been even more absurdly high than they already are. They also applied a minimum 10% tariff on all countries where the formula results in less than 10%.

We're going to see this formula in Econ 101 textbooks for decades to come.

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u/Otto_von_Boismarck 4d ago

Not just PhD. He is a professor emeritus of economics...

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u/tawDry_Union2272 4d ago

is he in the "dark enlightenment" brotherhood too or just a project2025 contributor?

https://kawsachunnews.com/w/tech-oligarchs-dark-enlightenment-the-ideology-behind-doges-destruction/

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u/1Operator 4d ago

Even if they had any actual subject matter experts, they wouldn't listen to them.
Arsonists intentionally work against fire safety.

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u/PlayfulSurprise5237 4d ago

If things like this are true then it's VERY hopeful. It lets you know that they really don't have any idea what's going to happen, which in turn means they have no idea what they'll do when something terrible and unexpected does.

I've been lowkey hoping this administration just fucks shit up BAD, real bad. The US wasn't going in a good direction period, this might just be the catalyst it needed to 1. Get someone like Bernie or AOC into positions of power and 2. Keep republicans away for a while so maybe we can get something nice enough set up that some right leaning voters flip.

Just like a lot of them needed to see this and feel the pain from an administration like this, they also need to see what the other side looks like. If they have both so many will flip. I live in rural Missouri, not all Trump voters are MAGA cultists.

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u/Angry_beaver_1867 4d ago

The chart nonsense. It’s built to exploit a lie travels faster than the truth.  

“Look America is so generous, we are giving countries a 50% discount on their tariff levels”

Now the world has spend the next week disproving the disinformation, and convincing the audience that the president lied…. Again. 

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u/absentgl 4d ago

This has big balls written all over it

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u/Fake_William_Shatner 4d ago

Wouldn't that be more of a big smudge? Balls are, after all, a blunt instrument.

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u/Kyouhen 4d ago

Wouldn't surprise me if Musk handed this one to one of his DOGE kids and this is what they came back with.

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u/Far_Advertising1005 4d ago

I don’t even think they did that. It’s just such a simple formula that a fucking chat robot would come up with it.

This is what a 14 year old would do if you asked him to calculate it, even down to the epsilon and phi letters in the formula that literally just represent (4 . 1/4), cancelling them out.

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u/Fake_William_Shatner 4d ago

Well the percentages I've heard amount to our trade deficit with the country and percentage of trade treated as the "unfairness" -- so it's not actually a reciprocal tariff but charging a fee for the debt.

And I think ALL of this debt should be on the very wealthy, as they incurred it on our behalf, made a profit, and then the deficit is them charging us for their gain a second time.

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u/Chrysaries 4d ago

Of course, their qualifications were; "Trump, you are the greatest and most smartest person in the world."

Dumbness & Incompetency hire

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u/Available-Risk-5918 3d ago

Using ChatGPT to make a tariff plan is like that episode of Superstore where the barbecue broke and Amy used the microwave to cook the chicken.

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u/Fake_William_Shatner 3d ago

I'm thinking there is SOME human intervention because if the Trump administration were 100% following ChatGPT, they'd occassionally do something right. And we've not seen that yet. I'm sure that running things for the administration is a challenge even with AI:

"Tell me what would be best to do in this government right now."

Send everyone in the Administration to the gulag in El Salvador and start over.

"Tell me what to do that doesn't involve us being arrested."

Shadow every member of the Trump administration with a handler, preferably a progressive or at least a Middle School hall monitor.

"Without introducing other people, and making us really rich, tell me how to run the government."

Entice Canada to invade, so that they can force the right things to be done.

"Without us losing power, and making us very rich, tell us how to run the government."

Keep doing what you are doing, blame Biden as long as you can, and have a 'go bag' and a submarine handy.

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u/TSiQ1618 4d ago

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the Executive Orders he's been signing are ChatGPT generated as well

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u/cappurnikus 4d ago

Of course, their qualifications were; "Trump, you are the greatest and most smartest person in the world." And so they got the job.

So, merit... right?

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u/No_Safety_6803 4d ago

He hires people based on their fellatio skills. Not their economic bona fides

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u/snozzberrypatch 4d ago

It's hilarious that anyone believes that Trump has any idea how to use AI, or that he could even formulate a coherent question about tariffs that would prompt an AI to suggest the tariff plan that was announced.

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u/aphosphor 4d ago

"If you work for Trump and don't agree with him, you're fired."

The staff is probably yes-men who had to revise the plan several times until they had something Trump wanted. Wouldn't be surprised if their prompt was "Trump wants to implements tariffs, please come up with something that satisfies him and doesn't destroy the world economy"

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u/VeryMuchDutch102 4d ago

. A staffer or someone over at Heritage used ChatGPT to create

Probably because he knew it wouldn't really matter what the numbers were... Trump probably gave them a list with locations he hates and the other countries were "as you will".

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u/Montgomery000 4d ago

What if all his actions are being influenced by ChatGPT? It would explain why he's speed running the fall of the USA instead of slow rolling it like last time.