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Re: incentivizing intelligence agencies to release more information. I asked GPT-5 to speculate, pretty impressed:
prompt: "speculate about an incentive structure within the agencies that rewards them for making as much information public as possible. Now they optimize only for global strategic advantage and self-preservation, what if structurally we added releasing information as a third motivation?"
ChatGPT said:
That’s a fascinating inversion of the current design. Right now, as you say, U.S. intelligence agencies are structured to optimize for (1) national strategic advantage and (2) bureaucratic self-preservation. Secrecy serves both: it protects sources/methods and shields the agency from criticism or oversight. Adding a third structural incentive: “maximize responsible public disclosure” would fundamentally reshape their internal incentive calculus. Let me speculate on how such a system might work.
1. Why Secrecy is the Default Incentive
Risk asymmetry: If you over-classify, there’s rarely a penalty; if you under-classify and something leaks or goes wrong, it can end careers.
Budget politics: Bigger “black box” operations make it harder for outsiders to challenge budgets. Classified = harder to contest.
Cultural prestige: Within the agencies, being “read into” highly secret programs is status. More secrecy = more power, more exclusivity.
These pressures mean that secrecy is the dominant strategy under the current incentive structure.
2. Hypothetical: Building in “Disclosure Rewards”
Imagine Congress, the executive, or independent oversight creates a third metric: value of responsible public transparency. The agency and its personnel are rewarded when information is released to the public (without harming ongoing operations). Possible structural levers:
Budgetary incentives: A percentage of agency budget is tied to a “Disclosure Index.” Agencies that responsibly declassify and release more information get higher discretionary funding.
Career incentives: Promotions and awards explicitly tied to quality and quantity of responsible disclosures (e.g. “analyst of the year” for producing intelligence assessments later released with minimal redactions).
Reputational capital: Agencies score “public trust points” tracked by oversight boards, affecting leadership bonuses, leadership tenure, or even how much autonomy Congress grants them.
Competition between agencies: If CIA, NSA, DIA, etc. are benchmarked against each other for transparency, the “prestige” dynamic flips—leaders want to be seen as the most open without compromising security.
3. What Changes in Behavior?
Classification standards shift: Default might move from “classify unless clear it’s harmless” → “release unless clear it’s harmful.”
Proactive declassification pipelines: Dedicated offices constantly preparing sanitized versions of reports for public release, with incentives to do it quickly.
Strategic openness as a weapon: Agencies might deliberately release certain intel analyses not only to reassure the public but also to shape foreign adversaries’ behavior (e.g., exposing corruption networks, publishing satellite evidence).
Public engagement loop: Agencies could become knowledge-brokers to the citizenry, publishing historical case studies, trend reports, and sanitized operational lessons, thereby turning intelligence into a “national commons” resource as much as a secret tool.
4. Potential Benefits
Trust repair: Citizens see intelligence as working for them, not over them.
Policy legitimacy: Elected officials can point to intelligence disclosures as grounds for decisions, reducing suspicion that policy is being driven by a “shadow state.”
Deterrence by transparency: Publishing adversary misdeeds (e.g. disinformation ops) can weaken rivals without kinetic action.
Innovation spillover: Releasing sanitized technical methods (cryptography, satellite imaging, AI analysis) accelerates civilian science/industry.
5. Potential Risks
Over-disclosure arms adversaries: Too much revealed, too soon, can compromise capabilities. Agencies might game the incentive by releasing irrelevant or already-known material.
Perverse incentives: Leaders may push to “pad” transparency stats with low-value data dumps rather than meaningful releases.
Short-termism: Drive to disclose could bias against long-term clandestine projects where secrecy is crucial.
Weaponization of disclosure metrics: Rival political parties could pressure agencies to release intelligence favorable to their narratives.