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OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

cnbc.com

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

#271

Post by overfeed »

jagermo wrote: post #226
raizer88 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE found basically nothing, and they worked with an axe trying to cut anything that come close to waste. So I am not sure where you see all this "waste and corruption".

I am convinced that you can find waste (probably not as much corruption) in every modern government. However, you need people to really dive into the processes, ask what and why those have been set up in the past (every rule has an origin story) and if they can be bundled or streamlined. Same with expenses, you need things like forensic accountants and time to understand things. Doge wanted to take shortcuts and dest…

> neither the workers there nor their boss has the attention span or the experience necessary to really understand and optimize processes, thus reducing waste.

The Government Accountability Office is a congressional body that's been doing exactly what you describe for years. It's old - so it goes against the narrative that government waste is unmonitored, it's also unglamorous, boring, and not meme-able, and most importantly non-partisan, so it won't reliably dominate the news cycle with outrageous partisan talking points.

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

#272

Post by thayne »

nkrisc wrote: post #140
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #136

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…

Step up, throw down some numbers and sources.

Here is one example of waste: FedRAMP certified software often costs 2-10x equivalent non-certified software. That means the government is paying a lot more than anyone else for the same thing.

Why? Well part of it is because getting and keeping that certification is itself expensive. There are expensive audits, that take up a lot of time, and generally require paying specialized consultants to get through. All of your cryptography needs to be done using expensive FIPS certified "modules". There are requirements about the hardware you run on. All of your vendors also need to be FedRAMP approved. The requirements often add a lot of friction to normal operations and slow things down. In many cases it is easier, and cheaper to run/build an entirely separate product for FedRAMP possibly in a separate data center, which adds a lot of cost. And to be honest, a lot of the requirements are mostly security theater.

But another reason is just that the government is willing to pay that high premium for a stamp of approval.

To be fair, it is warranted for the government to have some assurance of the security and quality of software they use, especially if the software is used for more sensitive purposes. But the certification process is overkill for many places software is used, and I think that if some effort was put onto steamlining the process, the cost could be brought down.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

jmsdnns wrote: post #164
ungreased0675 wrote: post #30

Judging from how the DoD currently buys software, lots of money will be spent, many headlines will be written, awards will be handed out, and zero software will make it on to user workstations. End users will continue to use Excel for everything.

Where did TCP/IP come from? It's on every computer.

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by jerjerjer »

tim333 wrote: post #270
wackget wrote: post #257

Anyone else angered by the fact that these military companies have named themselves using words from Tolkien's works? Andruil, Palantir... it makes a mockery of the things that Tolkien stood for and I hate it.

Which things does it mock? Tolkien served in WW1 and trained to be a code breaker in WW2. I feel he may have seen value in military technology.

> I feel he may have seen value in military technology.

LOTR has fairly pronounced anti-industrial themes.

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

#275

Post by Aliabid94 »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #221

Paul Graham tends to be against Silicon Valley participation in the defense industry, while Marc Andreessen is all for it. Palmer Lucky makes a very good case why AI applications in military are a very good thing, and I tend to agree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooMXEwl7N8Y It's American technology and industry that won the major wars of the 20th century. If Western technology companies abdicate that res…

What has China done that comes even close to what the US has done or supported all over the Middle East, esp Iraq and Gaza?

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

#276

Post by FirmwareBurner »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #224
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the US taxpayers voluntarily asked their government to give them expensive and shitty health insurance instead of healthcare?

The US government doesn’t run the healthcare system, and yes voters consistently choose to keep it this way.

So ... corruption.

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

#277

Post by sorcerer-mar »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #276
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government doesn’t run the healthcare system, and yes voters consistently choose to keep it this way.

So ... corruption.

No.

How is "voters choose to have a system that optimizes for profit" an example of "corruption?"

Please explain your logic step by step.

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

#278

Post by transcriptase »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #168
transcriptase wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call it when the government pays for tens of thousands of annual licenses for software and only a few hundred are ever activated?

Oh oh I know this one! A rounding error!

Close! A drop in the bucket! Which is why it’s important the bucket is always getting larger, that way everything is a drop and no single thing is worth making more efficient!

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

#279

Post by tim333 »

jerjerjer wrote: post #274
tim333 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which things does it mock? Tolkien served in WW1 and trained to be a code breaker in WW2. I feel he may have seen value in military technology.

> I feel he may have seen value in military technology. LOTR has fairly pronounced anti-industrial themes.

That was in a story about elves and wizards. I doubt in WW2 he thought it terrible that the UK could make Spitfires and break German cryptography.

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

#280

Post by sorcerer-mar »

transcriptase wrote: post #278
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh oh I know this one! A rounding error!

Close! A drop in the bucket! Which is why it’s important the bucket is always getting larger, that way everything is a drop and no single thing is worth making more efficient!

There are lots of single things worth making more efficient. This isn't one of them. This isn't even remotely close to the top decile of the list. This is probably in the last 5% of things you'd want to fix.

It's not principled to solve problems in stupid ways, it's actually just stupid.

Here's where someone who has thought about the problem for more than 5 seconds would likely start: gigantic healthcare organizations defrauding Medicare, in particular vertically integrated pay-viders.

Literally tens of billions of dollars per year in known, easily detectable fraud.

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