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> ...when it’s handed to unskilled, underpaid employees who don’t care and are used to just following instructions? From experience, this is sort of lazily lib

> ...when it’s handed to unskilled, underpaid employees who don’t care and are used to just following instructions? From experience, this is sort of lazily libeling a broad cross-section of public servants. The public sector has no monopoly on useless employees, you'll find them in equal if not greater numbers in the private sector. There are plenty of very highly skilled people in government who are quite passionate about serving the public good. The one thing you're correct on is that they're underpaid, and we're fortunate that they're passionate enough about public service and aren't focused on salary-maxing. They're stuck in a system that's managed by the whims and grandstanding of politicians, and attacked as 'the deep state' by people who want to take us back to the spoils system where every public employee is a crony.

Solvency 3y ago
Skilled or not, the government modus operandi is not designed to facilitate nuanced, bespoke, individualized responses to people and problems. If you think it's frustrating dealing with Google/YouTube arbitrarily and capriciously and erroneously and mercilessly shutting down your account and providing zero explanation and zero accountability and zero helpful customer service... Now imagine that for crucial government services. If there is a flag or datapoint in your government data, then that's that. Too bad. Can't help you. That's what the computer is telling me. This happens on a daily basis right now, for any number of human or computer errors. Now insert a hallucinating ML model that only a subset of the population truly know how to use in small doses for productivity, and expect the GOVERNMENT to utilize it in a non-erroneous way?
- mullingitover 3y ago
  > and expect the GOVERNMENT to utilize it in a non-erroneous way? This is what I'm talking about. Saying "the GOVERNMENT" is a ridiculously broad stroke, it's like saying "the INTERNET" (which, ironically, was brought to us by a particularly smart group of people working for the government). > Now insert a hallucinating ML model that only a subset of the population truly know how to use in small doses for productivity What's special about the tech elite that makes them any better at using these hallucinating ML models? The government includes vast numbers of specialists and researchers, and many of them are a lot smarter than we are. Government doesn't consist entirely of DMV employees.

Solvency 3y ago

Skilled or not, the government modus operandi is not designed to facilitate nuanced, bespoke, individualized responses to people and problems. If you think it's frustrating dealing with Google/YouTube arbitrarily and capriciously and erroneously and mercilessly shutting down your account and providing zero explanation and zero accountability and zero helpful customer service... Now imagine that for crucial government services. If there is a flag or datapoint in your government data, then that's that. Too bad. Can't help you. That's what the computer is telling me. This happens on a daily basis right now, for any number of human or computer errors. Now insert a hallucinating ML model that only a subset of the population truly know how to use in small doses for productivity, and expect the GOVERNMENT to utilize it in a non-erroneous way?

mullingitover 3y ago
> and expect the GOVERNMENT to utilize it in a non-erroneous way? This is what I'm talking about. Saying "the GOVERNMENT" is a ridiculously broad stroke, it's like saying "the INTERNET" (which, ironically, was brought to us by a particularly smart group of people working for the government). > Now insert a hallucinating ML model that only a subset of the population truly know how to use in small doses for productivity What's special about the tech elite that makes them any better at using these hallucinating ML models? The government includes vast numbers of specialists and researchers, and many of them are a lot smarter than we are. Government doesn't consist entirely of DMV employees.