A new artificial intelligence project inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development is putting a fresh spotlight on how government rules may be rewritten. According to the source article, Christopher Sweet, a DOGE operative at HUD, has been tasked with using AI to examine agency regulations and suggest where they could be relaxed or removed.
The work is notable not only because it involves federal rules, but because of who is leading it. Sweet was introduced to HUD employees as a third-year student at the University of Chicago studying economics and data science, and the University of Chicago confirmed to WIRED that Sweet is “on leave from the undergraduate college.”
What the DOGE AI project is doing at HUD
Sweet’s reported assignment centers on comparing HUD regulations with the laws behind them. The AI tool is being used to identify places where HUD may have gone beyond what the underlying law requires, then suggest replacement language.
One area of focus is regulation tied to the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH). Sources cited by WIRED said Sweet has produced an Excel spreadsheet with around a thousand rows of policy areas flagged by the AI tool. The spreadsheet includes recommendations for changes and identifies places where the tool says HUD may have “overreached.”
PIH staffers are then asked to review the AI recommendations. If they disagree, they must justify their objections. After that review, the recommendations are expected to go to the Office of the General Counsel for approval.
That process matters because it places human review between the AI output and any formal legal step. One HUD source described the project as unusual, saying, “It all sounds crazy—having AI recommend revisions to regulations,” while also adding, “But I appreciated how much they’re using real people to confirm and make changes.”
Why the role has drawn scrutiny
Sweet was introduced inside HUD through an email from Scott Langmack, a DOGE staffer and chief operating officer of an AI real estate company. Langmack wrote, “I’d like to share with you that Chris Sweet has joined the HUD DOGE team with the title of special assistant, although a better title might be ‘Al computer programming quant analyst,’” and noted that Sweet was originally from San Francisco and speaks Portuguese fluently.
The title itself raised questions inside the agency. One HUD source said, “A programmer and a quantitative data analyst are two very different things.”
The source article states that Sweet has no government experience and has not completed his undergraduate degree. It also says Sweet did not respond to requests for comment about his work, while a HUD spokesperson said the agency does not comment on individual personnel.
Sweet has also reportedly been given read access to HUD data systems, including the Public and Indian Housing Information Center and enterprise income verification systems, according to agency sources. The article does not say that he changed those systems, only that sources described his access as read access.
How the AI output is being used
WIRED reviewed a copy of AI output from one HUD department. The document contained columns showing text the model identified as needing adjustment, along with suggested changes. In effect, the tool was proposing rewrites of regulations.
The spreadsheet also showed how many words could be removed from individual regulations and included a percentage figure for how noncompliant the regulations were. The source article states that it is not clear how those percentages are calculated.
One HUD source said they were told the model is “being refined by our work to be used across the government.” That source also said they were told, during a meeting attended by Sweet and Jacob Altik, that the model would crawl through the Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR). Altik is described in the source as another known DOGE member who has worked as an attorney at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Two sources were told Sweet is the lead on the AI deregulation project for the entire administration. The source article presents that as something those sources were told, not as a confirmed official title.
The broader deregulation context
The HUD work sits within a wider deregulatory push described in the source article. Plans for large-scale deregulation were laid out in the Project 2025 policy document, which the article says the Trump administration has effectively used as a playbook during its first 100 days in power.
That document is described as calling for deregulation in areas including the environment, food and drug enforcement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The AI work at HUD appears to fit that broader emphasis by searching for rules that could be reduced, rewritten, or removed.
One HUD source questioned whether the exercise was necessary at all. The source said the agency already goes through a “multi-year multi-stakeholder meatgrinder before any rule was ever created” under the Administrative Procedure Act. The source article explains that this law governs how agencies establish regulations and allows judicial oversight over agency actions.
What is known about Sweet’s background
The source article says it is unclear how Sweet was recruited to DOGE. It also points to a public GitHub account, “CLSweet,” that WIRED linked to him. That account created an application to track and analyze federal regulations, “showing how regulatory burden is distributed across government agencies.” The application was last updated in March 2025, before Sweet joined HUD.
Sweet’s online footprint is described as limited. One short biography appears on the website of East Edge Securities, an investment firm he founded in 2023 with two other University of Chicago students. The biography says Sweet previously worked with private equity firms including Pertento Partners, based in London, and Tenzing Global Investors, based in San Francisco. It also lists him as a board member of Paragon Global Investments, a student-run hedge fund.
The same biography says Sweet “will be joining Nexus Point Capital as a private equity summer analyst.” Nexus Point Capital is described as having headquarters in Hong Kong and Shanghai and as “an Asian private equity fund with a strategic focus on control opportunities in the Greater China market.”
East Edge Securities, Pertento Partners, Tenzing Global Investors, Paragon Global Investments, and Nexus Point Capital did not respond to requests for comment, according to the source article.
The core issue is straightforward: AI is being used to identify possible changes to federal housing regulations, but the process raises questions about expertise, accountability, data access, and how automated recommendations should be treated inside government. For now, the available facts show a project that combines AI-generated suggestions, staff review, and legal approval, with major implications for how agencies may handle rulemaking work in the future.