Unless your actual goal is to fuck that thing up then Do not Apply generative "AI" To anything That needs to be Exactly And precisely Correct. Fucking stop it. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

wolvendamien.bsky.social • 6 days ago

Unless your actual goal is to fuck that thing up then

Do not
Apply generative "AI"
To anything
That needs to be
Exactly
And precisely
Correct.

Fucking stop it.

Reposted from makena kelly

SCOOP: DOGE wants to rebuild SSA's codebase in months, risking benefits and system collapse, sources tell me.

The plan is to migrate all systems off COBOL quickly which would likely require the use of generative AI.
www.wired.com/story/doge-r...

Comments

donadickinson.bsky.social•6 days ago

The DOGE kids have lived in an IT world where accuracy was not a legal requirement.
They have no idea that every single person has to get the correct amount.
At a certain time.
Based on their specific data and *laws*.
Estimates or omissions generated by AI aren’t acceptable.
Disaster incoming!

abysmallytall.bsky.social•6 days ago

I said this elsewhere, but I work in a legacy codebase with even less complexity than SSA. This will not work and I have to assume that it's the point.

nancyworld.bsky.social•5 days ago

I was a COBOL mainframe programmer for large public universities for many years. Did a lot of database wrangling. The idea that people without deep knowledge and experience would even TOUCH that kind of code or data makes my head explode. EXPLODE.

It could well be that they simply want to break it.

abysmallytall.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'd like to think I'm pretty good at this for as long as I've been doing it. Being pretty good does not give me the hubris to believe I could successfully wrangle a code base that large in a language I don't know. Not to mention all the existing employees who state eye daggers at DOGE. No support.

nancyworld.bsky.social•5 days ago

True. I'm anticipating high salaries for people with the knowledge to fix what they break and the willingness to try. But even old-time COBOL programmers who are familiar with those kinds of systems would need startup time to learn how SSA systems work. Six months? No checks?

Not a pretty picture.

nancyworld.bsky.social•5 days ago

There are some systems still being maintained in COBOL, like insurance and banking and other Federal stuff; not everyone is a retired geezer like me. Maybe there'll be opportunities for people in their 30s & 40s who are willing to work 16 hrs/day for several months.

It's just one possible scenario.

rowlandville.bsky.social•5 days ago

Elon knows this is a risk and he's facilitating it. That might explain the willingness to let these arrogant little pricks at the code.

I'm curious what documentation will remain.

coughlinbrett.bsky.social•5 days ago

During the early months of the Covid pandemic the state of New Jersey were scrambling to find people who knew COBOL in order to help process over 570k unemployment claims.

https://tinyurl.com/bdaavcm2

majoneza.bsky.social•5 days ago

That makes much more sense. So much more that it's the only plausible sounding explanation so far.

jaksays.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/jaksays.bsky.social/post/3llhdx7i6mc2r

jaksays.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/jaksays.bsky.social/post/3llhmxvny3227

westbynoreaster.bsky.social•5 days ago

"oh, it doesn't work, why don't we get rid of it then" is a very common conservative political strategy.

Also I think these people are very happily aggressive in their ignorance because of never experiencing consequences.

dbjorkca.bsky.social•5 days ago

It really is the only explanation

theranot.bsky.social•5 days ago

They have giant egos and don't know what they don't know.

colinbowern.com•5 days ago

Break it, then claim it’s easier to rebuild from scratch with a new rule book? Not out of the realm of possibility. I’m sure there is a Project 2025-esque new rule book just waiting in the wings. 😅

wolvendamien.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/wolvendamien.bsky.social/post/3llh4otyn4c2s

wolvendamien.bsky.social•6 days ago

This is accurate and these people genuinely need to meaningfully stopped before they fuck everything up so badly that nothing can be recovered or rebuilt
https://bsky.app/profile/miniver.bsky.social/post/3llh2y3w3a22w

texaskrusty.bsky.social•5 days ago

As long as we get the end of Fight Club…

chriswardman.bsky.social•6 days ago

Canadians very much appreciate America’s self sabotage. The collapse can’t come soon enough.

moosens.bsky.social•6 days ago

Unfortunately the mouse and elephant still applies…. It’s going to have a massive impact here too

tcrowley.bsky.social•5 days ago

As the old saying goes, "When the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold"

coughlinbrett.bsky.social•5 days ago

What’s the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

mael.bsky.social•6 days ago

Vibes coding your grandma's social security checks is certainly a choice.

whitepuffin.bsky.social•4 days ago

America, the country where every citizen is a beta tester.

fetchinketch555.bsky.social•6 days ago

Yea, right, THAT should be seamless!!!! 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

enots406.bsky.social•5 days ago

Everything doge does, makes me a bit more inclined to think, ya know maybe those luddites were on to something.

agent139.bsky.social•5 days ago

100%

(Though I'm also fairly sure at this point that fucking things up is their goal, but)

wolvendamien.bsky.social•5 days ago

Oh it definitely is.

wolvendamien.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/wolvendamien.bsky.social/post/3llh4otyn4c2s

philipmartin.bsky.social•5 days ago

Using a cadre of software dev interns using GenAI which, at best, produces software dev intern level code, to replace a legacy system that decades of work have gone into and which does not seem to have an appreciable issues (other than software intern devs don’t grok it), will produce a shitshow.

westbynoreaster.bsky.social•5 days ago

Literally no systems engineer at any level thinks this is a good idea. This is driven by aggressively ignorant people proud of their own ignorance.

demofox.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yeah.
Or the point is to destroy it.

anomalocarlos.bsky.social•5 days ago

If they JUST wanted to destroy it they could do so far more easily and sooner

While they do intend to screw over a lot of beneficiaries, they're using AI because they (wrongly) believe it works

nefariousdro.bsky.social•5 days ago

Honestly, I think there's two goals here. First, breaking it is the intent. That's what they've been doing all along. Second, they'll be getting paid for that "rebuilt" system that breaks everything. Win/win, is what they think.

bluebayog.bsky.social•5 days ago

Watch the idiots loose all our data that collects what we earned and paid into Social Security and what we can collect depending when we retire.

shar34.bsky.social•5 days ago

Their actual goal is to fuck it up.

wolvendamien.bsky.social•5 days ago

Exactly

gregconvertito.bsky.social•6 days ago

Moving from a perfectly functional, time-tested, stable language and codebase to god knows what, for “efficiency.”

wolvendamien.bsky.social•6 days ago

There is no efficiency here. It's a wrecking crew and power grab wrapped up in manipulatively palatable doublespeak

tomfodw.bsky.social•5 days ago

"But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?"

gnomeandfairy.bsky.social•5 days ago

🎯

gregconvertito.bsky.social•6 days ago

Since they announced the non-department, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Jason Stanley’s arguments about technocratic language and efficiency-speak that lacks any precise relational terms (efficiency in terms of what?) in his analysis of the Flint water crisis. https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.25.1.0001

spudmonkey.bsky.social•6 days ago

The thing people fail to grasp about this legacy COBOL is there are DECADES of patches, bug fixes, special cases and personally idiosyncratic code in there.

Sometime when coding you have to work around issues in...uh... non-standard ways.

We honestly CAN'T reproduce the embedded knowledge.

chaosgreml.in•5 days ago

No, I think over half of the country grasps this.

I think maybe Elon doesn’t.

Maybe.

susankayequinn.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think Elon understands *exactly* that this will break the system. That is the goal.

gnomeandfairy.bsky.social•5 days ago

I feel certain he doesn’t.

matociquala.bsky.social•5 days ago

Let's just both survive long enough to read the history books, Damien.

wolvendamien.bsky.social•5 days ago

Agreed, and very very much trying

turturo.dev•6 days ago

Nothing screams “I’m new to software development” like wanting to rewrite everything. And additionally thinking it can be done in a few months for a large complex system. 🤦‍♂️

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•6 days ago

If you couldn't replace the LLM output with "lorem ipsum," you probably don't want to use LLM output.

spudmonkey.bsky.social•6 days ago

Exactly.

LLMs can be helpful, no doubt, but they are NOT trustworthy.

If we had unit test on the COBOL code you could at least make a credible effort but.... legacy COBOL + unit test = DNE.

kaseyi99.bsky.social•5 days ago

I worked for the Railroad Retirement Board (the railroad equivalent of SSA). As of when I retired in 19, we had 3 failed attempts to get off of COBOL & the last one cost the CIO his job since he bragged he would get us off COBOL in a year.

kaseyi99.bsky.social•5 days ago

Now, I haven't kept in touch much since I left (Covid kind of killed that), so I don't know if they made it off, but I do know its not as easy as some people think.