4 ms·

Even if you were to argue AI systems would eventually have a place in government, which they almost certainly would have anyway long term, the sheer carelessnes

Even if you were to argue AI systems would eventually have a place in government, which they almost certainly would have anyway long term, the sheer carelessness and lack of oversight of its implementation by a private citizen and group of individuals of proven, questionable ethics is enough reason in itself to have to burn the forest down. Thinking of it objectively, almost nobody here can say they would stand for this at any company they worked at or ran. This is not an acceptable IT practice no matter which side of the fence you are currently sitting on - allowing an unvetted entity to modify your internal systems without audit or oversight is completely absurd.

CyrsBel 2y ago
You are correct. And the nonchalant way in which the leaders who are supposed to oversee this thing are treating it is appalling. It will have consequences during mid-terms and beyond. It is clear that some people believe elected office to mean that they are then given authority and rights with which to increase in...being voyeurs rather than visionaries???
hamhock666 2y ago
[flagged]
- lucasyvas 2y ago
  Big Balls, man? Really? This dude is vetted to make this change? Come on. The kid wouldn’t be an unpaid intern at most companies. He wouldn’t pass the HR screen. Regardless of politics, they don’t have the credentials.
  - hamhock666 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - scottLobster 2y ago
      No, they're hiring people with no relevant experience who in one case was fired from a previous job for leaking confidential information. Another is an unapologetic cartoonishly not-subtle racist. It's amazing to me how every time DOGE is challenged its supporters come back with "I'm sure they're doing the right thing" despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm starting to think this ends with DOGE cutting like a few hundred million dollars of random stuff, taking out even more debt to cut everyone $5000 checks, swamp every media channel with bogus "WE CUT FIFTY TRILLION DOLLARS TO GIVE BACK TO THE PEOPLE!!!" and you guys will just lap it up without question.
      - ModernMech 2y ago
        It’s worse than that. They’re going to give themselves $4T in tax cuts for the 1%, cut Medicaid for $800 billion, and claim DOGE will make up the balance, even though it won’t make a dent. The debt will go up $3T, the savings will never come (again), poor people will lose healthcare, and when people wisen up, Republicans will revert to talking about how Democrats just want to “tax and spend”.
        TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
        MAGA will blow up in their faces. When health care and benefits disappear the US is suddenly going to have millions of angry, desperate, stupid and/or brainwashed volatile people waving their 2nd Amendments at Washington. This has Musk's name stamped on it. No amount of lying and misdirection is going to change that.
      - marcusverus 2y ago
        >despite all evidence to the contrary. What evidence? Be specific.
        scottLobster 2y ago
        How much time you got? I'll keep it high level because I'm pretty sure I'd crash Hacker News if I spent all day typing out every last specific issue for you, and I don't have time to do that anyway. - A multitude of errors in basic math in the claimed savings, like claiming 55 billion in savings when the "receipts" posted on their own site to back up those numbers did not add up to 55 billion even assuming they were accurate. Diving deeper, they clearly misunderstand how government contracts work, claiming they saved the full value of contracts they cut despite said contracts having been partially paid out. In one case they claimed 8 billion in savings for a contract that was worth 8 million, and then apparently tried to change the data to cover up their mistake when called out. Here's a twitter thread with some more specific examples: https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1892432354016202831 https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1892432354016202831 - And here's all the contracts they claim to have canceled: https://doge.gov/savings https://doge.gov/savings No verifiable reasons have been given for why these specific contracts were chosen. What made these more wasteful than other contracts? How will canceling them improve efficiency? Nothing more than "Trust us bro", I doubt they know themselves; they certainly haven't had the time or the staff or the expertise to investigate anything with any detail. - Elon's companies are recipients of massive government contracts and were under investigation by some of the agencies he is attempting to cut. An insane conflict of interest that has not been accounted for beyond "trust us". There is no politically independent oversight of any nature. - The shutdown of USAID was done so incompetently that employees were left stranded overseas locked out of government networks without support. - The wholesale gutting of the CFPB, a program which actually made more money for taxpayers than it cost, while claiming to care about financial efficiency. - Avoidable accidental firings of critical personnel across government agencies. Re-hiring is a non-trivial cost on top the immediate disruption and you won't get a 100% return rate. Complete waste of time of and money while disrupting mission critical activities. These are not the actions of serious people trying to curtail government waste, fraud and abuse. If they are, they're a sign of rank incompetence. These are the actions of people who, even if given the benefit of the doubt, are falsely convinced that the government does no good whatsoever and they can cut programs and grants with no consequences that matter except to their political enemies. This isn't even getting into the legality of what they're doing, but DOGE supporters have made it quite clear at this point that they view the law as the enemy, or at the very least irrelevant.
    - solarmist 2y ago
      No, it means having a security clearance. It has a very specific meaning. Having been thoroughly investigated by the FBI to not be an enemy or a threat to the United States.
    - Zamaamiro 2y ago
      That's a definition of "vetting" that nobody else but you seems to have proposed. Feels like a strawman.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      > I’m sure DOGE is not just hiring random bums off the street The fact that there isn't any transparency about their hiring process is a big flashing red light that there was no hiring process. These people are against DEI "because we should only be hiring the best, not focusing on race/etc." So be transparent and show the damn receipts to prove you hired the best. Who did they screen. How was it that Big Balls beat out a pool of qualified applicants. I'll wager they can't show their receipts because they don't have them. These anti-DEI people really just want to lazily revert back to a good ol' boys network, hiring only from their in-group or just hiring the very first candidate they personally like, regardless of their actual qualifications. The hiring process went something like this: "this kid was recommended by some billionaire's brother-in-law, and he went to an elite school so obviously he's qualified. The End."
    - alwa 2y ago
      What gives you that confidence? I know that I wouldn’t trust 19-year-old me anywhere near a mature, nation-scale system that lives depend on.
- nielsbot 2y ago
  replace the old system with what exactly? and why does it have to be done quickly?
  - hamhock666 2y ago
    It has to be done quickly because the administrative state is large and there is a lot to do. Institutions grow old with time and need drastic reform or replacement. I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that. Look at how FDR used the Bureau of the Budget to similar effect.
    - dTal 2y ago
      > I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that Kind of the key issue dontcha think? Maybe woulda been good to know that before burning down the government? "ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that" is exactly what the government is for. We had a bunch of smart people thinking about a lot of our problems. They're fired now.
      - lc9er 2y ago
        The idea that government isn’t filled with tons of smart, hard working people is infuriating. Not every smart and ambitious person wants to spend their life in a rent-seeking job, building the next subscription-based app. There’s thousands upon thousands of dedicated government workers that could earn more in private industry, but view the work as a higher calling.
        nielsbot 2y ago
        So true. It's a damn shame what DOGE is doing to the government I paid for. Tearing it down and replacing it with something leaner, faster, better (fingers crossed) is just nonsensical libertarianism all over again.
        hamhock666 2y ago
- barbazoo 2y ago
  > They need to move fast in order to replace the old system. Why?
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    Pretty sure they’re doing this blitzkrieg because what they’re doing is illegal and if they don’t get it done quickly, they’ll get stopped by the courts and probably arrested.
    - ta1243 2y ago
      And pardoned within minutes
AlecSchueler 2y ago
> nobody here can say they would stand for this at any company they worked at or ran This is what leaves me incredulous about so many people here defending this. I've been on this site daily for how many years I don't know but the one thing that has been consistent is the security idea that an outside entity gaining physical access to your server means that it is irreparably compromised, and that it should be treated as a liability and re-built from the ground up. But somehow it's fine if it's public data in a federal database?
- lucasyvas 2y ago
  Thank you for citing that because it is really the basis of my point. It is meant to be apolitical and to demonstrate that we are not OK with this otherwise so shouldn’t be now.

CyrsBel 2y ago

You are correct. And the nonchalant way in which the leaders who are supposed to oversee this thing are treating it is appalling. It will have consequences during mid-terms and beyond. It is clear that some people believe elected office to mean that they are then given authority and rights with which to increase in...being voyeurs rather than visionaries???

hamhock666 2y ago

[flagged]

lucasyvas 2y ago
Big Balls, man? Really? This dude is vetted to make this change? Come on. The kid wouldn’t be an unpaid intern at most companies. He wouldn’t pass the HR screen. Regardless of politics, they don’t have the credentials.
- hamhock666 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - scottLobster 2y ago
    No, they're hiring people with no relevant experience who in one case was fired from a previous job for leaking confidential information. Another is an unapologetic cartoonishly not-subtle racist. It's amazing to me how every time DOGE is challenged its supporters come back with "I'm sure they're doing the right thing" despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm starting to think this ends with DOGE cutting like a few hundred million dollars of random stuff, taking out even more debt to cut everyone $5000 checks, swamp every media channel with bogus "WE CUT FIFTY TRILLION DOLLARS TO GIVE BACK TO THE PEOPLE!!!" and you guys will just lap it up without question.
    - ModernMech 2y ago
      It’s worse than that. They’re going to give themselves $4T in tax cuts for the 1%, cut Medicaid for $800 billion, and claim DOGE will make up the balance, even though it won’t make a dent. The debt will go up $3T, the savings will never come (again), poor people will lose healthcare, and when people wisen up, Republicans will revert to talking about how Democrats just want to “tax and spend”.
      - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
        MAGA will blow up in their faces. When health care and benefits disappear the US is suddenly going to have millions of angry, desperate, stupid and/or brainwashed volatile people waving their 2nd Amendments at Washington. This has Musk's name stamped on it. No amount of lying and misdirection is going to change that.
    - marcusverus 2y ago
      >despite all evidence to the contrary. What evidence? Be specific.
      - scottLobster 2y ago
        How much time you got? I'll keep it high level because I'm pretty sure I'd crash Hacker News if I spent all day typing out every last specific issue for you, and I don't have time to do that anyway. - A multitude of errors in basic math in the claimed savings, like claiming 55 billion in savings when the "receipts" posted on their own site to back up those numbers did not add up to 55 billion even assuming they were accurate. Diving deeper, they clearly misunderstand how government contracts work, claiming they saved the full value of contracts they cut despite said contracts having been partially paid out. In one case they claimed 8 billion in savings for a contract that was worth 8 million, and then apparently tried to change the data to cover up their mistake when called out. Here's a twitter thread with some more specific examples: https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1892432354016202831 https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1892432354016202831 - And here's all the contracts they claim to have canceled: https://doge.gov/savings https://doge.gov/savings No verifiable reasons have been given for why these specific contracts were chosen. What made these more wasteful than other contracts? How will canceling them improve efficiency? Nothing more than "Trust us bro", I doubt they know themselves; they certainly haven't had the time or the staff or the expertise to investigate anything with any detail. - Elon's companies are recipients of massive government contracts and were under investigation by some of the agencies he is attempting to cut. An insane conflict of interest that has not been accounted for beyond "trust us". There is no politically independent oversight of any nature. - The shutdown of USAID was done so incompetently that employees were left stranded overseas locked out of government networks without support. - The wholesale gutting of the CFPB, a program which actually made more money for taxpayers than it cost, while claiming to care about financial efficiency. - Avoidable accidental firings of critical personnel across government agencies. Re-hiring is a non-trivial cost on top the immediate disruption and you won't get a 100% return rate. Complete waste of time of and money while disrupting mission critical activities. These are not the actions of serious people trying to curtail government waste, fraud and abuse. If they are, they're a sign of rank incompetence. These are the actions of people who, even if given the benefit of the doubt, are falsely convinced that the government does no good whatsoever and they can cut programs and grants with no consequences that matter except to their political enemies. This isn't even getting into the legality of what they're doing, but DOGE supporters have made it quite clear at this point that they view the law as the enemy, or at the very least irrelevant.
  - solarmist 2y ago
    No, it means having a security clearance. It has a very specific meaning. Having been thoroughly investigated by the FBI to not be an enemy or a threat to the United States.
  - Zamaamiro 2y ago
    That's a definition of "vetting" that nobody else but you seems to have proposed. Feels like a strawman.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    > I’m sure DOGE is not just hiring random bums off the street The fact that there isn't any transparency about their hiring process is a big flashing red light that there was no hiring process. These people are against DEI "because we should only be hiring the best, not focusing on race/etc." So be transparent and show the damn receipts to prove you hired the best. Who did they screen. How was it that Big Balls beat out a pool of qualified applicants. I'll wager they can't show their receipts because they don't have them. These anti-DEI people really just want to lazily revert back to a good ol' boys network, hiring only from their in-group or just hiring the very first candidate they personally like, regardless of their actual qualifications. The hiring process went something like this: "this kid was recommended by some billionaire's brother-in-law, and he went to an elite school so obviously he's qualified. The End."
  - alwa 2y ago
    What gives you that confidence? I know that I wouldn’t trust 19-year-old me anywhere near a mature, nation-scale system that lives depend on.
nielsbot 2y ago
replace the old system with what exactly? and why does it have to be done quickly?
- hamhock666 2y ago
  It has to be done quickly because the administrative state is large and there is a lot to do. Institutions grow old with time and need drastic reform or replacement. I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that. Look at how FDR used the Bureau of the Budget to similar effect.
  - dTal 2y ago
    > I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that Kind of the key issue dontcha think? Maybe woulda been good to know that before burning down the government? "ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that" is exactly what the government is for. We had a bunch of smart people thinking about a lot of our problems. They're fired now.
    - lc9er 2y ago
      The idea that government isn’t filled with tons of smart, hard working people is infuriating. Not every smart and ambitious person wants to spend their life in a rent-seeking job, building the next subscription-based app. There’s thousands upon thousands of dedicated government workers that could earn more in private industry, but view the work as a higher calling.
      - nielsbot 2y ago
        So true. It's a damn shame what DOGE is doing to the government I paid for. Tearing it down and replacing it with something leaner, faster, better (fingers crossed) is just nonsensical libertarianism all over again.
      - hamhock666 2y ago
barbazoo 2y ago
> They need to move fast in order to replace the old system. Why?
- mullingitover 2y ago
  Pretty sure they’re doing this blitzkrieg because what they’re doing is illegal and if they don’t get it done quickly, they’ll get stopped by the courts and probably arrested.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    And pardoned within minutes

AlecSchueler 2y ago

> nobody here can say they would stand for this at any company they worked at or ran This is what leaves me incredulous about so many people here defending this. I've been on this site daily for how many years I don't know but the one thing that has been consistent is the security idea that an outside entity gaining physical access to your server means that it is irreparably compromised, and that it should be treated as a liability and re-built from the ground up. But somehow it's fine if it's public data in a federal database?

lucasyvas 2y ago
Thank you for citing that because it is really the basis of my point. It is meant to be apolitical and to demonstrate that we are not OK with this otherwise so shouldn’t be now.