The facts
The Government Accountability Office published report GAO-27-107837, "Artificial Intelligence: Actions and Opportunities to Implement Responsible Use in DOD," on October 14, 2026. It is a Q&A report to congressional committees on how the Pentagon is implementing its Responsible AI guidance.
Since May 2021, DOD has used the Responsible AI Working Council as the permanent working-level collaborative group for Responsible AI. GAO found that CDAO officials acknowledged that the council did not meet from late 2024 until August 2025. Before the lapse, CDAO officials said monthly meetings on Responsible AI were held with department-wide attendance. The officials said that other priorities limited their ability to organize council meetings for a period of time.
The council also has no charter. GAO reports the Responsible AI Working Council does not have a charter with assigned roles, responsibilities, and meeting frequency, and that without one the council is at risk of lapsing again. CDAO officials acknowledged not having a charter.
Staffing is thin. A 2023 resourcing memorandum authorized CDAO 10 positions for Responsible AI, including a Systems Engineer, a Program Manager, and an AI Ethicist, among other positions. But according to CDAO officials, as of February 2026, only three of the 10 positions are filled and CDAO is unlikely to fill vacant positions or increase staffing.
The work is behind. As of April 2026, CDAO documentation showed that 29 of 64 lines of effort were incomplete. GAO is making two recommendations to DOD: that the Secretary of Defense ensure the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer develops and issues a charter for the Responsible AI Working Council, and that the officer addresses the Responsible AI Division's workforce needs. The Department provided comments via email indicating concurrence with both of GAO's recommendations.
Our take
The Pentagon is spending billions to build killer robots that can make ethical decisions at machine speed, and the office tasked with overseeing that shit couldn't even schedule a fucking conference call for nine months. Let that sink in. The 'Responsible AI Working Council' - the permanent, department-wide collaborative group for making sure our autonomous weapons don't commit fucking war crimes - just stopped meeting from late 2024 to August 2025. Their excuse? 'Other priorities.' These bureaucratic dickheads were too busy to send a fucking Doodle poll to discuss the moral framework for machines that might one day decide to glass a city. That's not a priority conflict; that's a catastrophic failure of giving a single shit. They built a ghost committee and then wondered why it vanished. Fuck me. And the structural incompetence is so perfect it's like a clown wrote the spec. This council has no charter. No assigned roles, no responsibilities, no defined meeting frequency. It's a fucking phantom limb of an ethics program. The GAO politely notes it's 'at risk of lapsing again' - no shit, you useless pricks. It's a committee with less formal structure than a pickup basketball game, and the Pentagon expects it to govern the future of warfare. It's like trying to steer a fucking aircraft carrier with a Post-it note that says 'maybe someone should drive?' Then there's the staffing, which is a joke so bleak it hurts. They're authorized ten positions. They've filled three. Three. And officials admit they're 'unlikely' to fill the rest. One of the seven empty chairs is literally for an 'AI Ethicist.' So the Pentagon can't be fucked to hire or fund the one cunt whose entire job is to ask 'should we do this?' while 29 out of 64 implementation tasks sit incomplete. This is the brain trust that wants you to trust them with Skynet. They can't even staff a fucking book club. The Department of Defense, in a move that reeks of cowardly bullshit, 'concurred' with the GAO's recommendations via email. That's the bureaucratic equivalent of texting 'k' after your wife asks if you're going to fix the leaking roof that's flooding the living room. It's a hollow nod from an institution that has already demonstrated its priorities: everything except the boring, crucial work of responsibility. They're building the fucking future, and they can't be bothered to write down who's supposed to show up to the meetings about it. Absolute fucking clowns.
