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The IRS Is Buying an AI Supercomputer from Nvidia
- jmclnx 2y agoThis will not end well. The IRS has tried many times to replace their mainframe systems and failed. So they are upgrading to AI ? I thought Trump was the "save waste" guy. These are finanical systems, they need to add/subtract and multiply/divide lots of transactional data. AI not needed.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoWhy do they keep failing? Don't tell me it's also COBOL that no one knows (or rather, isn'tpayong enough to remaining experts to know). I (really) don't think AI is the solution in its current iteration, but it's unfortunate that it seems like they keep failing.
- throwup238 2y agoThe increase in complexity of tax law coincided with the era of COBOL mainframes and those changes were a lot easier to implement incrementally, but to build it from scratch now is a herculean task regardless of the language. AI definitely won’t help with that.
- jonfromsf 2y agoAI is GREAT at porting software to new languages. That's like one of the things it is best at.
- fragmede 2y ago> IBM says GenAI can convert that old COBOL code to Java for you https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/22/ibm_says_genai_can_convert/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/22/ibm_says_genai_can_co...
- dartos 2y agoAlso from that article > IBM is giving its mainframe customers a tool infused with generative AI to translate COBOL code to Java Hard to wholesale believe claims when they are literally the ones selling that capability. It probably works well for already clear and well structured cobol.
- Neywiny 2y agoNot that Java is dead but that is reminiscent of the futurama professor invention of translating one dead language into another.
- jmclnx 2y agoAll well and good, but the system deals with money. You cannot have rounding issues. For non COBOL systems, rounding issues are a big issue.
- dartos 2y agoAI is okay at it. It is one of the things they are best at. Tho it works best with small chunks of well isolated code… I doubt it’d be very successful with the IRS’s ball of COBOL, especially considering how little cobol code is available for training sets. It’d still require a ton of hairy manual work.
- jmclnx 2y agoThe software is was written in the 60s and patched, patched, patched... I knew someone who worked on it, he passed away in the late 90s. Plus tax laws change every year, in many cases causing massive changes. Every conversion failed because no one is left fully understands the whole system. Plus for a conversion, you need a long quiet time, with the tax laws you never get that. Not to mention, even with Biden's additional funding, which I am sure it will be cut, it is far from the amount needed for a successful project. So here we are. I think some "modernization" has occurred, but the core system is still running some 60 year old software. Note, I knew a lot of people who worked there prior to 2000, so maybe what I know is a bit out of date. But I doubt it since the attempts I have read about over the past 20 years did not succeed.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThe tax code is legislation and they're the government. Instead of trying to translate it from old COBOL spaghetti code, discard the existing code and implement a new system from the tax code. And while you're having a bunch of lawyers go through the tax code in order to do this, have them recommend simplifications to make it easier, so that instead writing new complicated software, you write new simpler tax laws.
- econ 2y agoEstonia
- hindsightbias 2y agoThe IMF and BMF aren’t just software. They’re the code in tax code. It’s the law, not the printed thing in a binder. If you have the gall to question IMF behavior vs printed tax code and write it up internally, you will get a reply from an tax code analyst in a couple of months from WV explaining why you’re wrong, selections from code, selections from IRS legal interpretations, applicable court cases past, present and pending. It’s all very polite, but you quickly realize they’re lawyers and you aren’t.
- caspper69 2y agoA big part of the failure is that the system is not entirely digital, and not entirely automated. People can still submit paper returns (and this is common for any businesses beyond a certain size- I've seen 200+ pages for a small-ish company's return). Supporting documentation and schedules can be non-standard (like receipts, letters, exhibits, spreadsheets, contracts, etc.), and the forms themselves can be hand-written and the other docs can be on inconsistent paper sizes so bulk ocr of any kind is rough. Really, you have several challenging problems- maybe 200M individual returns filed every year, who knows how many corporate returns, all of the daily/monthly/quarterly filings for payroll, then for tax season you have an army of temp workers who are responsible for doing manual data entry which is cumbersome. Then you have the financial management/reporting/reconciliation side of it. The volume is staggering. Electronic transfers in both directions, handling paper checks both to and from taxpayers. More manual data entry for manual payments. And the kicker of all this is that it actually works for some pretty reasonable value of that term. And everyone here knows what the code probably looks like and we definitely know what the code's documentation looks like. How would you like to sit down with the nearly 7,000 pages of the US Tax Code and start taking a bite of that monster? It's not a reference manual- the amount of cross referencing with other laws and regulations required would be monumental. So, you are correct, AI is definitely not the answer; But I suspect the AI is for rooting out tax cheats (or maybe certain tax cheats), not running the system itself.
- conradev 2y ago> These are finanical systems, they need to add/subtract and multiply/divide lots of transactional data. AI not needed. The IRS gets 125 million paper forms every year: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/politics/tax-season-irs-digitizing-paper/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/politics/tax-season-irs-digit... They tried and failed to scan some of them with OCR: "OCR – This project involved extracting machine-readable data from low-resolution and poor-quality images (both digital and paper) with the capability to integrate them with the IRS’s information technology systems and intake different types of forms and data. The pilot project was discontinued in October 2022 after failing to identify acceptable solutions using the vendor and resources provided. The ED&CMO has no plans to resume this effort at this time." https://www.tigta.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-09/202310050fr.pdf https://www.tigta.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-09/20... I imagine that a few GB200s would actually help with that effort
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hindsightbias 2y agoThe 1040EZ was being OCR’d forty years ago. It doesn’t scale to 1040s and schedules because today’s biologics don’t know how to write anymore.
- DeepYogurt 2y ago> I thought Trump was the "save waste" guy. What made you think that?
- jmclnx 2y agoEverything his boss Musk says :)
- Frummy 2y agoThe people maintaining the systems could use AI to grapple with transforming it faster, no? I mean, if you have to rewrite existing programs from 1995 all the time you might as well feed an AI the context and get some suggestions and just verify and test the changes instead of manually with pen and paper jotting out the tree of the sections and the database relations and how the architecture requires it to be and what new legislations need to be accounted for in what way etc etc.. So AI can be used to speed up transforming the existing infrastructure instead of AI doing the actual processing which would obviously be not the direct use case in anyones mind It could also be implemented in less volumous tasks, like specialised scenarios like complex cases of fraud detection idk
- tombert 2y agoThey never actually define what “efficiency” means, so it can be anything they want, and then they can claim any victory they would like by playing with numbers and definitions.
- anotherhue 2y agoImagine a world in which they use this computer to model ways to simplify the tax code.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThe tax code is complex by design though. They only want those who pay full time financial advisors to find loopholes to find loopholes.
- dartos 2y agoHow would a simple tax code help the ultra wealthy?
- bbddg 2y agoDon't need a super computer to do that hah
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- gigel82 2y agoIf they have this kind of cash why not just fix the system they already have and improve IRS Free File and make it available to everyone?
- breakitmakeit 2y agothat would benefit the people and not a large US company.
- raverbashing 2y agoBecause Elon giving the finger to the public is more important He literally gloated on his website about closing it
- dartos 2y agoHow would ensuring the IRS is able to correctly do its job make more money for the ultra wealthy?
- xeromal 2y agoTheir system is a hodge podge of bailing wire and duct tape strapped cobal. I don't think there's a way to "fix" it other than redoing it in pieces.
- DeepYogurt 2y ago[flagged]
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoMonopoly action card: the IRS has hallucinated in your favor. Collect paid federal income tax for last year.
- arcticbull 2y agoMy first thought is "we're gonna have to train it up on COBOL."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- qgin 2y agoAudits for everyone
- beej71 2y agoIt will definitely be trained to not audit billionaires.
- econ 2y agoTo hunt down people who talk unfavorably about the great leader.
- bdangubic 2y agocorrect - as long as they don’t make 7-figures. anyone over 7-figures is auto-exempt
- thegrim33 2y ago"Last September the IRS announced it would hire 3,700 new agents to help increase scrutiny of taxes paid by corporations, wealthy people and the private investment funds they increasingly favor. " [https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/02/inside-the-irs-unit-taking-on-americas-millionaires-and-billionaires/ https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/02/inside-the-irs-unit...] "IRS launches new effort aimed at high-income non-filers; 125,000 cases focused on high earners, including millionaires" [https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-launches-new-effort-aimed-at-high-income-non-filers-125000-cases-focused-on-high-earners-including-millionaires-who-failed-to-file-tax-returns-with-financial-activity-topping-100-billion https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-launches-new-effort-aimed-a...] "The Internal Revenue Service today announced the agency has surpassed the $1 billion mark in collections from high-wealth taxpayers with past-due taxes. " [https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-tops-1-billion-in-past-due-taxes-collected-from-millionaires-compliance-efforts-continue-involving-high-wealth-groups-corporations-partnerships https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-tops-1-billion-in-past-due-...] -- Your ideological view of reality and what the IRS are objectively doing do not seem to remotely line up.
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- yalogin 2y agoIsn't the IRS on the chopping block? I know they killed the free tax filing feature for citizen. I cannot keep track anymore. Reading through the article, it's not one or two machines but 8 Blackwell nodes, so quite some firepower for compute. Wonder what part of the audit or tax prep requires a GPU farm.
- enos_feedler 2y agomaybe they'll just do all our taxes for us?
- manquer 2y agoA lot of developed countries do this. They just sent you your assessment automatically with they you think you/they owe if anything, you need to file anything only there if you believe there is difference . The US system is pretty backwards really, most of the taxes are deducted at source anyway the system already has a good idea of your income/taxes owed. If IRS calculate returns at scale using tax deducted at source and employer info(W-2 etc) , unless you dispute their calculations there is no need for audit or paperwork at all reducing the cost of running IRS too. This kills intuit so will never happen, but if it does it would be the single biggest revenue boost to the Government easily in tens if not 100's of billions of dollars.
- econ 2y agoYes, every few years I press ok. They want me to do it every year but that just seems like a lot of work. So far they got everything right. I really want this for small businesses in real time. The payment processor already deals with most refunds. It would be nice to fill taxes with each purchase, payment or invoice automatically. Should automate the payments too! Give them the (approved) work schedule, let them provide a clock card machine. Pay the salary end of the shift. Why should we have a party dragging out a transaction? Just complete it immediately and ideally in isolation. Then they might as well also run the bank, the payment processor and the recruitment agency. People here in NL are afraid to start a business not because they can't deliver the product or service or that they can't find customers, they are afraid of the tax office.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cookiengineer 2y agoRemember the movie Brazil (1985) when someone got swatted, inprisoned and executed because of a typo caused by a fly? Imagine how the appeal process will "work" once the IRS introduces LLMs for this...
- moonlet 2y agoThis does not seem like it is going to help the IRS do a better job with tax arithmetic.
- someothherguyy 2y agoAs a US citizen, if the government isn't using appropriated funds legally, whats the point in paying taxes? Maybe they see this coming.