They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks." • Hacker News Board

Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."

#71

Post by 1attice » Fri, May 15, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #70

pjc50 wrote: post #27

> where we identify public servants with strong technical aptitude across government, bring them into dedicated product teams > The team’s approach was straightforward. Build working software fast. Put it in front of real users early. Collect feedback. Fix things quickly. Release updates every two weeks. > That’s a 95% cost reduction. Both systems instead of one. Delivered faster. With 643 users already on the platfo…

And that requires good management too and sadly the public sector has a lot of really poor management /hr too.

Citation needed

Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."

#72

Post by duxup » Fri, May 15, 2026, 7:08 PM UTC

1attice wrote: post #71

duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that requires good management too and sadly the public sector has a lot of really poor management /hr too.

Citation needed

Experience.

Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."

#73

Post by 1attice » Sat, May 16, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #72

1attice wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed

Experience.

Anecdata

Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."

#74

Post by vessenes » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #53

vessenes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech isn't the big news. It's the process opportunity for governments. That said, I did really like what they reported on a use case of Gemini -- they got a bunch of people to video every single process in the old systems, and then got Gemini to watch the video and write full specs for the new systems. Niiice. What you have in civil government is a lot of people and a lot of time -- turning that into inputs for a…

> they got a bunch of people to video every single process in the old systems, and then got Gemini to watch the video and write full specs for the new systems. Niiice. Ah, that's what the AI ingredient is. Seems reasonable, the kind of drudge work that gets avoided because nobody wants to do it. Requirements-capture what the existing system does. This often fails in the real world because it's done at some distance:…

100%. Worst, it’s semi-skilled drudge work - someone has to understand enough about the system needs to properly document. And then just go blind with boredom reviewing.