DOGE seeing access to IRS - they're in the door

[Rideback]

Elon Musk seeing dead people,..
https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/elon-s ... irect=true

[mister_coffee]

You don't even have to go that far to know that doing that (replacing existing knowledge workers in most any enterprise with current AI technology) won't work. And probably can't be made to work with foreseeable technology.

From a practical standpoint, you aren't going to be able to train a competent nuclear safety engineer or FBI counterterrorism specialist with data collected by scraping Wikipedia, Reddit, and the New York Times. You are going to need subject matter experts to compile a very large collection of training data. Except (oops!) you just fired a bunch of them. And you are going to need to keep them (the experts) on the payroll and keep them working to keep those AIs up to date with the latest stuff. Current AI does not learn on its own.

Those of us on the research end of this are beginning to suspect that there is something deeply rotten in the state of the art. Mainly what we are seeing is that how you phrase a question can produce wildly different results, many of them incorrect. That is a very bad sign. A person not a subject matter expert might describe this as a stability or reproducibility problem. That makes them untrustworthy for complex tasks and also means you'll have to consult a human expert to evaluate any answers the AI is giving you, which kind of negates the point of the exercise.

There is kind of an unspoken assumption in most big corporations that they will be able to replace most knowledge workers en masse with AI in the coming years. They are going to be both disappointed and very surprised.

[Rideback]

I'll just throw this out there.
From the public pronouncements it's sounding like Musk's plan is clean house on all our Fed'l institutions, not to necessarily save money, but to make room to sell the advantages of turning over the jobs to AI. Of course there will then ensue a giant food fight among the various AI titans over whose AI will be picked to run the US. Eventually the dust will settle with none of us really knowing what this country will look like then.

But thing is, AI uses a whole lot of energy. Small nuclear plants are being talked about, even in the initial stages of permitting, but it takes awhile to get those up and running. Meanwhile, with the country running on AI a pretty serious vulnerability enters the game. What happens when a grid goes down by accident or through the actions of foreign/domestic hackers/terrorists? What if those same bad guys decide to just tinker with the inner workings of our AI controlled country? They could retrain the various AI's. And again, if the DOGEboys forgot to protect their own website chances are pretty good they're not up to the task of protecting a whole grid or the AI that runs it.

We already know that China and Russia have hackers that are just salivating to create intrusions. Think of ransomware one hundred fold.

I'm already missing those Fed'l employees who have been given the boot.

[mister_coffee]

Gavin Kliger's name came up in another context recently.

He has (actually had) a public Substack. At first he was charging $1000/month for access, but reduced that to $8/month. He posted an article about himself titled "Why I Joined DOGE: A Silicon Valley Engineer's Political Awakening" before deleting it. I think it is a pretty big sign you have to reexamine you life choices if you post stuff about yourself on the internet and then delete it.

Anyway, a full deconstruction (paywalled at least partially) of this guy's post (which some good people saved before it was deleted and passed it on to others) can be read here:

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-e ... brownshirt

It makes for an interesting read.

[Rideback]

Pete Buttigieg:
"If you wanted to cut waste, fraud and abuse you would empower the Inspectors General.
If you wanted more waste, fraud and abuse you would fire the Inspectors General.'

[Rideback]

NYT: by Alan Rappeport, Andrew Duehren, Maggie Haberman

'The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to give a team member working with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive taxpayer data, people familiar with the matter said.

The systems at the I.R.S. contain the private financial data tied to millions of Americans, including their tax returns, Social Security numbers, addresses, banking details and employment information.

“Waste, fraud and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said. “It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.”

Mr. Fields added: “DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard-earned tax dollars on.”

The examination of the I.R.S. system represents the latest move by members of Mr. Musk’s team to push the boundaries of access to government data beyond what is typical for political appointees. The Treasury Department has faced questions in recent weeks after lieutenants of Mr. Musk who were assigned to the agency started scrutinizing the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s system, which directs payments across the federal government.

Gavin Kliger, a young software engineer who was brought into the Office of Personnel Management as part of the DOGE effort, worked at I.R.S. headquarters on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. He will be assigned to the I.R.S. as a senior adviser to the acting commissioner. The tax agency is still working out the exact terms of his work at the I.R.S., though he is expected to have broad access to its systems, according to the two people.

As of Sunday evening, he had not yet gained access to sensitive I.R.S. data, the two people said.

The Washington Post reported earlier on Sunday that the I.R.S. was considering a memorandum of understanding that would give DOGE staff members broad access to its systems, including the Integrated Data Retrieval System, which contains taxpayer accounts.

Attempts by Mr. Musk’s team to gain access to Treasury Department data have faced legal challenges, and efforts to scrutinize I.R.S. systems could encounter a similar fate.

This month, 19 state attorneys general led by Letitia James of New York sued to block the Trump administration’s policy of allowing political appointees and “special government employees” led by Mr. Musk access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems. On Friday, a judge extended a court order blocking that access and said she would decide soon whether to keep the restrictions in place until a final ruling was made, which could take months.

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The I.R.S. is preparing to lay off thousands of employees as soon as this week as part of the administration’s initiative to cut costs across the federal government.

The Biden administration was in the process of a multibillion-dollar overhaul of its systems, but Republicans have been working to rescind much of the agency’s funding.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week that he hoped to upgrade the antiquated technology at the I.R.S.

“I have three goals: it’s collections, privacy and customer service,” Mr. Bessent said on Fox Business last week. “And I don’t think there’s anyone, anyone in the country, who thinks that they — that the I.R.S. has achieved its potential in either of those three.”

President Trump has long been a critic of the I.R.S., often complaining that it was overly aggressive in its audits of his finances.

In a fund-raising email on Saturday, Mr. Trump asked recipients whether he should authorize Mr. Musk’s team to audit the tax agency.'