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OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

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Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#151
post #3

Does anyone have any idea what the DoD could possibly want from OpenAI? Less accurate/more sycophantic missiles?

1. Secretary of Defense feels like bombing some place. Asks aide to write a report on, justification, logistics, and consequences. 2. Aide tells subordinate to write report. 3. Subordinate uses ChatGPT to write the 100-page report. Sends it to aide. 4. Aide uses ChatGPT to summarize report. Sends summary to SecDef. 5. SecDef accidentally posts summary on publicly-accessible social media page, then forwards to Preside…

Afterwards some or all of the accountability for the taken action is transferred to the amorphous entity known as AI.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#152
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOD doesn’t really do this

Only because they currently contract it out to Palantir (at least the bits that NSA isn't handling)

News to me. I can’t find any details though. Can you share your source?

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a thought exercise on your loaded question, considering government waste and corruption has been thoroughly covered by journalists since the invention of the free press and are a Google search away for you. If I don't post sources, then you just accept government corruption doesn't exist, simply because nobody Googled for you? If I do post sources, then what? Do you just suddenly change your mind and accept…

>If I do post sources, then what? Do you take your words back and admit that stuff documented by the press it is real? If you post sources he will nitpick them to all hell. It's a classic bad faith argument move since it moves the discussion from one of the subject to one of source validity. You usually see HN's resident handful of chronically linkposting jerks do it in the other direction (i.e. they make some insane…

It's not bad faith when it's a legitimate request, which depends on the assertion.

If I say the sky is blue because of plane chemtrails, and you ask me for a source, that seems valid.

As with any large procurement system, there is moderate government waste in proportional terms, but one of the primary drivers of that waste is... anti-corruption systems operating as intended.

If you require 4 more forms than private sector, in order to be more sure there isn't corruption, then you've just imposed a cost that creates no value.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#155
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this fear mongering?

It's the reality of the situation.

Not for every single person who visits this site. This isn't reddit, explain what you mean and provide a source for your claims.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad faith argument. Why are you moving the discussion to DOGE when that's not what I was talking about? You know the word "governments" that I used, means a lot more than the current TRUMP administration, right? Broaden your mind and PoV. And also, how can you say with a straight face there isn't ongoing and never has been waste and corruption in any government? Again, think for yourself, ignore $CURRENT_EVENTS. Look…

> Has there been value delivered proportional to the money spent at reasonable market rates? If not, then money was wasted via incompetence, pocketed via corruption, or both. I'm going to unpack this a little. The second sentence does not actually follow from the question asked by the first sentence. "Value" is a loaded term as used here. Not all value is economic. Most value has a degree of judgement involved. I may…

>"Value" is a loaded term as used here. Not all value is economic. Most value has a degree of judgement involved.

No it isn't. Most value CAN be objectively measured. I'll give you examples. US outspends all the other developed nations at healthcare, education, childcare and yet is behind them all in actual results with poor education, high infant motility and lower life expectancy. That's what waste and corruption does. Germany beats France at military spending and yet it's military is significantly less capable than France's. Waste and corruption. I could go on.

If someone tells you the value of their work can't be objectively measured, it's because they're dodging accountability and they have their hand in your pocket and wish to keep it that way.

>There are things we want as a society that would not be adequately replaced by market solutions. Roads, for example.

Fine, let's go with roads. If the "market price" price for road construction is 6 million/KM, but your government signed a deal with a contractor for a basic road at 20+ million per KM without any objective justification of why the price hike, then the taxpayers are being taken for a ride, called waste and corruption.

And I'm not even saying anything out of the ordinary. Such grifts are the norm in plenty of countries.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#157

$200M is very small when it comes to the world of US defense. Combined with this being formally labeled as a pilot, this can be safely ignored until they reach IOC. Though what this signals is a change in strategic direction regarding autonomous capability. While they won't be rigging an LLM onto a drone, there are many cyber and administrative problem spaces that exist in defense that AI products could meaningfully…

One need not add LLMs to a drone. Language models not required. The US have had fully autonomous drones for quite some time. These drones already play on hard-mode.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#158
post #3

Does anyone have any idea what the DoD could possibly want from OpenAI? Less accurate/more sycophantic missiles?

To attempt to make sense of all my after action reports? kidding

Maybe one potential use could be to drink from the firehose of data and then try to create summary bullet-point reports for the higher ups instead of relying on data filtering up the chain of command in the old game of telephone. At least that is what I would use if for. Getting that data in nearly real-time in an accurate presentation would be priceless.

I do not have the slightest idea how they will secure all this data if going to a 3rd party like OpenAI unless they have their own self hosted version of it on their own mainframes. If that data is going to live in a 3rd party they need to secure their systems in a magical way systems has never been secured. They would have to cast some seriously powerful protection spells.

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has there been value delivered proportional to the money spent at reasonable market rates? If not, then money was wasted via incompetence, pocketed via corruption, or both. I'm going to unpack this a little. The second sentence does not actually follow from the question asked by the first sentence. "Value" is a loaded term as used here. Not all value is economic. Most value has a degree of judgement involved. I may…

>"Value" is a loaded term as used here. Not all value is economic. Most value has a degree of judgement involved. No it isn't. Most value CAN be objectively measured. I'll give you examples. US outspends all the other developed nations at healthcare, education, childcare and yet is behind them all in actual results with poor education, high infant motility and lower life expectancy. That's what waste and corruption d…

What would you say determines the market price of a kilometer of "basic road"?

Re: OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

#160
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I do post sources, then what? Do you take your words back and admit that stuff documented by the press it is real? If you post sources he will nitpick them to all hell. It's a classic bad faith argument move since it moves the discussion from one of the subject to one of source validity. You usually see HN's resident handful of chronically linkposting jerks do it in the other direction (i.e. they make some insane…

It's not bad faith when it's a legitimate request, which depends on the assertion. If I say the sky is blue because of plane chemtrails, and you ask me for a source, that seems valid. As with any large procurement system, there is moderate government waste in proportional terms, but one of the primary drivers of that waste is... anti-corruption systems operating as intended. If you require 4 more forms than private s…

>It's not bad faith when it's a legitimate request, which depends on the assertion.

No offence, but comparing asking for proof of corruption with proof of sky being blue of petrochemicals is a biased bad faith argument.

Asking for sources on corruption is more like asking for proof that the earth is round, which is definitely not a legitimate request, but more trolling masquerading like an innocent request and dodge scrutiny ("It's just a question bro, why r u mad lol").

Nothing wrong with asking such a question per-se, but that's something you can also google yourself due to countless occurrences from legitimate sources, hence why it's in bad faith to ask such a thing from others, and should be more strictly moderated as many here abuse this "sauce or gtfo" attitude in bad faith to discredit a pov without providing any arguments.

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