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After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work
- pmags 2y agohttps://archive.is/RkCst https://archive.is/RkCst Color me dubious about "coding errors" when Musk and his lap DOGE-ies are involved.
- jillyboel 2y agoEven though I wouldn't be surprised at all about the fact that anything Musk and his cronies put out is chock full of coding errors, it does seem like it's just a pathetically weak excuse.
- giantrobot 2y agoHey don't worry, they're going to rewrite all the SSA software next!
- pestatije 2y agohopefully they found a new job already
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago[flagged]
- tasty_freeze 2y agoIn general it is a good practice to assume other parties are making a good faith effort, but after so many obvious cockups, that grace has been exhausted. My assumption is that there is a lot of blow-back so they are restoring a few high profile names so they can say, "see, we aren't stopping science!". It is good this handful of people are back on the job, but I assume the NIH is like most other organizations -- the top name isn't doing the work themselves. They lead a team of people and their expertise is used to provide them direction and as a resource to help analyze surprising results. If the top experts lose their staff, I doubt they'll get nearly as much done. Having the 65 year old braintrust spending hours pipetting and staining samples is wildly inefficient. DOGI.
- mlinhares 2y agoAlso, if you're nearing retirement and you look at this mess, you're not coming back, there won't be anything to be done. Its a trap. They'll get these folks back, there will be nobody else to do the work and they'll come back and say "see, these people were useless, we were right in firing them".
- the_snooze 2y ago>Its a trap. Trust is efficient. Lack of trust is inefficient. If someone untrustworthy like Musk fired me and suddenly wanted a do-over, I'd counter with a completely selfish arrangement like a $500/hr contracting rate with some non-trivial amount due up front.
- anonzzzies 2y agoYep, exactly. I do that over far less. And otherwise, f off. People are way too nice to people screwing you over. Unlike we often see here, there are really good business owners who would (and do) sell all they have to keep all the staff through rough times. But those usually are (all I guess?) small businesses; I have the good fortune to contract (yes they even bend over backwards, both unconnected company owners, to keep their contractors) with 2 of them. And they pay well above market in the EU; American wages while they are from the EU. Most others will try to screw you and they call it 'it is not personal, it's just business'; while that's true, it rings hollow when you just did your stinking best. We are led to believe (mostly because of US tech in my case), that you need to work yourself to death while accepting everyone will throw you in a meat grinder whenever they wake up on the wrong side. Musk as poster child of this. But you make money! Sure, so especially for those, and especially in a pickle, our hourlies are bizarrely high and they still come back.
- cyanydeez 2y agoThe entire republican party setup a self-fullfilling prophecy of distrust, deep state, etc etc.
- 2y ago
- etchalon 2y agoSo we're firing people with PHP now?
- vFunct 2y agoLikely TCL
- freeone3000 2y agoChatGPT
- m0llusk 2y agoSeems like it might be more efficient with WebAssembly.
- etchalon 2y agoCan't wait for the Rust rewrite.
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago> “Even if they stopped now, a lot of damage has been done,” another NINDS investigator says. “I think it’s a sinking ship. I don’t mean my lab, I mean biomedical research.”
- throwawaymaths 2y agoIt already was, though. We lost about 2 decades of alzheimer's research and probably about 30 drug candidates, and that's just one subfield.
- Larrikin 2y agoSo what is your point?
- throwawaymaths 2y agoMy point is if you don't think the ship was already sinking you are hopelessly naive. Consider the possibility that scientific funding is net social negative (scary, I know, but possible, if the only people in the system are fraudsters at the top and good scientists forced to chase after or try to replicate or refute fraudulent results for careerist reasons). Then cutting all funds would be socially good.
- const_cast 2y agoThere’s no reason to believe scientific research as a whole is a net-negative. This anti-science populist message is tired. The reality is that a lot of this research has saved innumerable lives. The solution is never, and I do literally mean never, burn it all down. This is a populist message because it’s easy and appeals to the lowest common denominator of human. It’s intellectually lazy, and supremely evil in its simplicity. Yes, the institution is flawed. Because all institutions are flawed. It should be improved, not set on fire. These are solvable issues. But proclaiming the best solution is no solution is the worst kind of anti-solution. Everyone loses. Everyone. There are no winners in this mentality, only losers and slightly less losers.
- MengerSponge 2y ago“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- barbarr 2y agoIs there any proof that they're coding errors? A simpler explanation, to me at least, is that they first blanket fired people by dubious criteria, and are now using this as an excuse to backpedal when they realize they've cut something important.
- garyfirestorm 2y agoIt’s purely political. “… fix the broken systems left to us by the Biden administration.…”
- sour-taste 2y agoThis was pretty insane to me. Like, whatever systems you're claiming Biden screwed up were 100% guaranteed untouched since the last trump admin. IT in the government moves slooooooow.
- sudoshred 2y agoNon partisan take, in every circumstance coding errors are a euphemism for “leadership is humiliated by the outcome and wants to shirk responsibility”.
- Terr_ 2y agoUnless perhaps they can furnish a really good post-mortem on the bug. Which is unlikely here.
- arkh 2y agoSeen this real-life: management ask for some unannounced change on prices. Everyone in IT tells them "this is gonna backfire fast". No way to budge them on it so we apply. A couple hours later support and sales are getting hammered by unhappy clients so we get to rollback as fast as possible. The official excuse? "That's an error from IT". Nope, the code worked perfectly and did what was asked of it.
- Jtsummers 2y agoDOGE did take DOD's AutoRIF which was meant to assist with RIF calculations and modify it. It was also required to be reviewed by a human before initiating any actual separations with it, though DOGE probably went the efficient route and did a "lgtm" rubber stamp on it without looking. However it was just meant to do calculations based on RIF requirement (years in service, veterans preference stuff, and the like) not make any unsupervised decisions based on it.
- bandrami 2y agoI stg DOGE is going to rewrite the Social Security software stack and it's going to crash and burn on the first person whose last name is "Null"
- kurthr 2y agoOh, little Bobby Tables. Such a trickster.
- goopthink 2y agoTo be fair, this is already a very real and annoying problem for unfortunately named folks, predating any DOGE work: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/null-last-name-computer-scientists-forms-f0a43b08 https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/null-last-name-computer-scient...
- shakna 2y agoThey're going to try and rewrite the IRS' Individual Master File, and not care if it changes the way it behaves.
- euroderf 2y agoAs I understand it, the source for the Master File is lost to the mists of time. But a SoA A.I. can disassemble and comment it, yes ? Prep it for recompilation ?
- shakna 2y agoThe source hasn't been lost. It's just that the source was written in a combination of assembly code and COBOL, before COBOL was standardised. They can turn and recompile it any time. Doesn't mean that it's easy to modify or maintain. There were successful efforts to translate it to Java, already underway (CADE-2). They were probably going to finish somewhere in the next two years. The efforts were for bit-for-bit identical reproductions. [0] An AI will not help you here. Because this little piece of assembly was created for mainframes, not for computers today (AS/400s, I believe). Even the concept of paths don't operate the way systems do today - the drives were direct access, and tape-based. There is not enough material to train a model on, to make it close to accurate. [0] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2020/10/irs-details-strategy-for-replacing-its-most-ancient-computer-code/ https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2020/10/...
- robertoandred 2y agoSounds super efficient.
- xyst 2y agoIt’s wild how America is just complacent with the destruction of the federal government. We see all of these red flags across the agencies yet there’s minimal uproar. I have seen a few protests (50501, recently) but nothing that stops this wanton destruction. - $6.6T sell off in market due to Orange administration trade war in just _2 days_ - USAID decimated - US trade partners lost - Federal agency head count losses across critical departments such as the DOJ - Weaponized incompetence at the DoD under the Hegseth “leadership” with Signalgate being the latest blunder - An unelected, billionaire Musk, with his supposed limited “special government employee” access and DOGE have been cutting public programs left and right. Public programs meant to be our safety nets - Department of Education being undermined by putting incompetent leadership at the top position (a _professional wrestling promoter_) and cutting funding to critical programs for public schools. This is also purportedly to be “abolished” - Then we have a non-medical professional, and health misinformation promoter at the head of HHS. The awful leadership during the measles outbreaks explains itself… Wonder if this is what it was like in the months preceding the _2008 subprime mortage crisis_ Definitely not excited for this recession induced by absolute stupidity. [1] https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/u-s-stock-futures-fall-further-after-china-retaliates-against-trump-tariffs-3be33fa7 https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/u-s-stock-futures-fall-fu...
- dualityoftapirs 2y agoAbout 160 million people either actively voted for this or couldn't be bothered to vote so ostensibly think this is ok. This is what the vast majority wants.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fwip 2y agoWhat kind of protest do you imagine could stop Trump from being Trump? His own staff tried that for four years (2016-2020) and made next to no progress. Now he's surrounded himself with enablers, and the Dems won't even make a real effort to oppose the stuff he's doing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JoshTko 2y ago"These are not serious people"
- wnevets 2y agoIf a coding error can ruin people's lives like this than you're doing it wrong
- avs733 2y agoThe quotation marks in this article are under a heavy load. Blaming people you just fired for a mistake you made firing people is as timeless as it is pathetic.
- ineedasername 2y agoYep, the ‘ol ”my finger slipped and I accidentally pushed ‘select * from table;’ instead of a complex and thoughtful set of filters” That type. It happens, we’ve all been there
- intelVISA 2y agoI doubt the outcome would've been much different had they used their complex and thoughtful set of filters (sys.rand)
- jmward01 2y agoThe obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business process. You are literally playing with entire lives here as if they are disposable things. This alone makes what is happening inhumane. Even if it did make things more 'efficient' I would rather a humane government than whatever efficient government they are aiming for here. The second incredibly obvious reason why this is wrong is because this isn't a business. Money isn't the point. Let me repeat this one more time. Money is not the point of a government. I can't understand any argument about government efficiency that only looks at money. It is about total benefit to society, period. If you hire someone that is 'breakeven' in what they produce vs consume from a pure production point of view you could argue that for a business they should go, but from a government point of view you have employed someone and that person is churning the rest of the economy and society has one less drain. In other words all of society is way better off with that breakeven, or even net negative, person employed in government. In other words, an efficient government actually can have what would be considered waste in a corporate world and that is not only OK, but the right answer. I know of several people that are 'employed' but net negatives and society is way better off with that arrangement than having them on the streets. Is there a place for money/efficiency discussions in government? Sure, but if it is the only thing you look at then you really need to re-think things. There are many, many other ways this is morally and economically wrong but those are my top two.
- stikit 2y agoit works both ways. People quit without any notice all the time, and you can be fired for no reason and without notice. It’s not inhumane, it’s life. Your employer doesn’t owe you a job for life, and you don’t commit to your job for life.
- eggnet 2y agoBut we aren’t talking about firing one person. There are macro effects to firing people at this scale and shutting down whole departments. Not to mention the fact that it is illegal.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago> The spokesperson added: “This is exactly why HHS is reorganizing its administrative functions to streamline operations and fix the broken systems left to us by the Biden administration. On previous software teams where I've worked, we had a joke that "You get to blame the guy who left for one month." That is you can do this type of complaining, "Oh man, this codebase is spaghetti, screw Bill who just left", for a month. But after a month, you no longer got to blame the guy who left - at that point, it was on you. We said it (somewhat) tongue in cheek, but there was a real message that, at some point, it doesn't really matter what the guy before you did - we've all dealt with legacy, shitty codebases, but at some point you need to own it. I realize taking any sort of responsibility for something that goes wrong is anathema to the current administration, but I think the "it's Biden's fault" excuse is going to start wearing really thin, even for Trump supporters if/when the economic shit show starts to affect them.
- grues-dinner 2y ago> A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. It was true in 1979, it's true today. Blaming "coding" for this is an explicit admission that someone is shirking their accountability.
- e40 2y agoThese people are shameless and will lie at the drop of a hat to get out from under any responsibility.
- VMG 2y agoThe modern corollary is > ... therefore a computer must make all management decisions
- arkh 2y agoAt least they only got fired. Not prosecuted for fraud like the British postal service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal > In all, between 1999 and 2015, over 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted and 236 went to prison.
- autoexec 2y agoThe more governments and corporations try to shove AI into everything the worse this problem is going to get. Blindly trusting computers was always a terrible idea, and now computers are getting even less reliable.
- arkh 2y agoThe main problem is the lack of responsibility all along the chain. 25 years and people who shifted blame and were OK with people going to prison so their bonus would not be impacted are still enjoying life out of jail. Seeing this lack of consequence how can you expect people to behave ethically?
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- jmyeet 2y agoCruely and revenge upon one's perceived ideological foes are the core organizing principles of this administration. This is a purge, similar to that of Jews of the Germany in the 1930s. The NIH in particular and civil servants in general are just one facet of this. The purge of academic ranks is another (eg [1]). What makes this possible is hyper-individualism, decades (if not centuries) of attack on any sort of collectivism and the fomented division of ordinary people based on race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or religion. I'm reminded of this LBJ quote: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” It echoes fears of the former slave-owning class in Reconstruction that poor white people would unify with freed slaves. It's wild to me that we're reliving Nazi Germany less than a century later while victims of the Nazi regime, direct first-hand witnesses, are still alive. [1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/29/harvard-cmes-director-departure/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/29/harvard-cmes-di...
- somenameforme 2y agoDo people just want to rage? Because a lot of what is being said here, and even the article's headline are not supported by what the article says. In particular: - The workers were never fired. They were put on paid leave. - They were fully reinstated less than 24 hours after it became clear a mistake had been made. - The headline is also misleading. The reason for the firing was 'based on administrative codes that “may not have been intentional.”' So it was a "coding" error in the sense of administrative codes, not programming. The way people are responding to this, and then hyperbolizing each other, just looks like mob mentality. I'm certain this will be downvoted for the exact same reason. People don't want facts.
- cptroot 2y agoFor what it's worth, if you get put on a RIF plan then you treat it like a firing. Them being on paid leave isn't them not being fired yet, it's severance.
- rexpop 2y agoIf only were an isolated incident, and not the latest in a long train of abuses and usurpations.
- somenameforme 2y agoExcept it's the same in literally all of these articles. Some relatively minor mistake is taken and blown up into some huge degree of maliciousness or unprecedented incompetence. People then 'social mediaize' it all by taking it at face value, and then getting each other even more riled up - exactly like a mob. It's easy to see where this is coming from because each writer of these sort of articles likely had colleagues and/or friends who were intentionally terminated, and so they're writing with a tremendous chip on their shoulder. But they're doing a disservice to themselves because anybody who is not particularly upset by these changes is going to completely eyeroll each time another one of these articles appears, and those who are genuinely upset are increasingly living in a world detached from reality. The end result is of course conflict and confrontation, which I suppose is the point. But I don't think this is something anybody would have ever wanted if we imagine how things might look in hindsight, before we get there.
- junto 2y agoIt’s a scream test with people.
- zombiwoof 2y agoGotta have a ton of faith these same coding clowns are shooting off rockets and building (hacking) self driving cars What could go wrong
- zombiwoof 2y agoEverybody hates government until they need it
- floppiplopp 2y ago'Ooops, computer did it.' will become the number one lame excuse by decision makers in the age of AI.
- ibudiallo 2y agoSince it's a coding error, let's run git blame and see what comes out. Being on the receiving end is never fun. For my case, after I was reinstated, I left shortly after. It was never the same with my colleagues.
- reportgunner 2y agoI am not american nor I live in america so I don't really have a horse in this race, but the DOGE approach seems to be the classic "move fast and break things" approach. The reactions to it are the classic reactions to that approach, competent people speak out to get broken things fixed and others are confused about what is happening.
- jacobgorm 2y agoEverything is computer.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]