The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has declined to release documents detailing how DOGE deployed artificial intelligence to identify and cut federal regulations, in one instance invoking a legal privilege that does not appear to exist.
DOGE · Federal Deregulation by AI
An AI Tool Built to Delete Federal Rules — and a Records Fight Over How It Works
HUD declined to release documents on how DOGE used AI to flag regulations for removal — once invoking a legal privilege that does not appear to exist. The tool sorts rules into keep, delete, or partial — with deletion set as the default.
1,083
HUD regulatory sections run through the AI tool
~200K
Federal regulations analyzed by a related DOGE AI system
~50%
Of all federal rules targeted for cutting within one year
Share of deregulatory actions the AI drafted
At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, automation wrote every one.
How the tool sorts each rule — deletion is the default
Reviewers flagged a built-in bias toward deletion — the tool treats elimination as its default case, forcing staff to justify why any rule should stay.
The promise
Backers say the technology compresses regulatory reviews that once took months into hours or days, with reviewers acknowledging real time savings.
The concern
Reviewers questioned the accuracy of outputs and its deletion bias — while withheld records make the software's logic and error rates hard to audit.
A public agency cannot lawfully withhold documents by pointing to a privilege that has no basis in law.
With the deregulation drive continuing across multiple agencies, the outcome of this records fight may set an early precedent for how much the public can learn about the AI systems now shaping federal rulemaking.
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