Millions of pounds wasted by using Palantir tech in refugee system
(FTFY)
UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
11–20 of 219 posts
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#12"In a 2023 blog post, external, Palantir described the challenge of combining data from multiple government systems containing tens of thousands of visa applications and hundreds of thousands of accommodation offers." This is the kind of thing GDS and other Civil Service departments build all the time, its a completely standard kind of challenge that a small team of Devs (+ supporting staff) from a departments DDAT d…
Hundreds of thousands of documents is small enough that you can feasibly run a pen and paper office handling them. Especially since most of them do not cross-reference eachother (family applications do, but unrelated families have no such links). That America's brightest tech minds can't solve this problem is embarrassing. (Never mind the baggage of giving a foreign, potentially adversarial nation access to something…
This article is about the UK.
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#13I would imagine with AI generated software this kind of replacing off the shelf software with internally created software will only increase.
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hundreds of thousands of documents is small enough that you can feasibly run a pen and paper office handling them. Especially since most of them do not cross-reference eachother (family applications do, but unrelated families have no such links). That America's brightest tech minds can't solve this problem is embarrassing. (Never mind the baggage of giving a foreign, potentially adversarial nation access to something…
This article is about the UK.
I'm well aware.
Note that Palantir is an American company that failed to solve this problem well, and introduces an adversarial risk to the UK.
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hundreds of thousands of documents is small enough that you can feasibly run a pen and paper office handling them. Especially since most of them do not cross-reference eachother (family applications do, but unrelated families have no such links). That America's brightest tech minds can't solve this problem is embarrassing. (Never mind the baggage of giving a foreign, potentially adversarial nation access to something…
This article is about the UK.
I assumed that when the GP said the UK was "giving a foreign, potentially adversarial nation access" the GP meant that the US is that "foreign, potentially adversarial nation"
I can't believe that in our timeline Europe has to think like this, but here we are.
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#16There's not really enough info to know if this is just a coin toss or something more. "Company tries to roll its own system and [saves / loses] money" is just a common story, one way or the other. For context, the Homes for Ukraine refugee scheme cost 2-3 billion as of 2023. I can't seem to find an updated cost. This cost (from the article) was Palantir working for free for the first 6 months (could they have beat th…
> There's not really enough info to know if this is just a coin toss or something more.
The difference is always having one or two devs who care. Every successful software project I've ever seen has had a few devs who care way more than is healthy
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#17[deleted]
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#18Palantir is very expensive. This is because: 1. they aim to deliver product company margins with a consulting-heavy model. 2. your software purchase funds a cadre of "free" FDEs and deployment strategists who customize your install, build a bunch of data pipes/transforms, and talk to people to figure out what all the data means. This could be a good deal if your tech org is not very competent at integrating your data…
could palantir consulting be replaced by LLM in the hands of a half competent hacker?
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#19Palantir is very expensive. This is because: 1. they aim to deliver product company margins with a consulting-heavy model. 2. your software purchase funds a cadre of "free" FDEs and deployment strategists who customize your install, build a bunch of data pipes/transforms, and talk to people to figure out what all the data means. This could be a good deal if your tech org is not very competent at integrating your data…
could palantir consulting be replaced by LLM in the hands of a half competent hacker?
No one got fired for buying ~IBM~ Palantir. (Well...)
Re: UK government replaces Palantir software with internally-built refugee system
#20Palantir is very expensive. This is because: 1. they aim to deliver product company margins with a consulting-heavy model. 2. your software purchase funds a cadre of "free" FDEs and deployment strategists who customize your install, build a bunch of data pipes/transforms, and talk to people to figure out what all the data means. This could be a good deal if your tech org is not very competent at integrating your data…
could palantir consulting be replaced by LLM in the hands of a half competent hacker?
No.
1. Palantir isn't selling consulting as much as Palantir is selling the confidence you get from buying a name brand. It's the same as paying for McKinsey to provide justification to do what you already want to do.
2. Palantir actually has some good core tech. An in house team can probably do a better job just because the incentives are better aligned, but they'll be starting from behind and have to catch up.
3. LLMs aren't at a level to replace a team of FDEs. Maybe in a couple of years. The role requires too much understanding of the human systems, and too much initiative to keep the ball rolling/acknowledge and deal with real problems.