Archive - Dave Guarino's Occasional Newsletter

Testing how AIs perform on nuanced SNAP problems

This is a crosspost of part 3 of a blog series on the Propel blog I’ve been writing about how to practically test how well (or poorly) AI models do with…

Apr 25 •

March 2025

Benefits navigation and the potential of AI

From opportunity to specific mechanisms

Mar 31 •

Sunday Misc: policy windows and paradigm shifts

"Misc” newsletters are my attempt to capture fragments/kernels of thoughts — and also try to continue writing in the midst of a general overload of…

Mar 9 •

January 2025

Using AI to help SNAP recipients make sense of “notices" (x-post)

Or, pairing a capability overhang with path-paving

Jan 28 •

November 2024

The use of knowledge in an AI (benefits navigator)

A kernel of a thought, verging on a draft

Nov 27, 2024 •

August 2024

James C. Scott, metis, and why motivated reasoning is a good thing

Metis, legibility, miscellany

Aug 11, 2024 •

June 2024

A broken SNAP call center gets comeuppance from the courts

Also: I have a new job; and some musings on agency in agencies

Jun 20, 2024 •

May 2024

My meandering interview in Asterisk Magazine

SNAP procedural denials! Bentham and Hegel! PEIS! What more can one ask for?!

May 20, 2024 •

February 2024

Friday misc: EBT theft indictments; a diatribe on power

Also: an FTC complaint against Deloitte over Medicaid disenrollments

Feb 16, 2024 •

January 2024

Public choice theory, government technology, , and management problems all the way down

Thinking out loud about an incomplete (if pervasive) mental model of this stuff

Jan 24, 2024 •

State SNAP agencies are overloaded — what *actually* can be done?

Also: SNAP AI guidance, reading section 208 of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1970

Jan 18, 2024 •

December 2023

Fragments compiled after midnight

Florida forks California, LLM stuff, and does the AI EO have an appeals backdoor?

Dec 20, 2023 •

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