The news is chock full of reports that Social Security may fire as many as half of its workers—all of whom are being pressured to take early retirement in one form or another. It's a huge and seemingly arbitrary layoff.
What makes it especially odd is yesterday's memo from OPM telling agencies to create layoff plans by March 14. It's nowhere near March 14 yet, so why not take the extra time to do a little more planning? Especially since OPM explicitly prohibited Social Security from making layoff plans on its own:
Agencies or components that provide direct services to citizens (such as Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ health care) shall not implement any proposed ARRPs until OMB and OPM certify that the plans will have a positive effect on the delivery of such services.
Very strange. OPM obviously hasn't had time to "certify" anything yet, so what's going on? Who's in charge?
The funny thing about all this is that I can see a case for big layoffs at Social Security. They seem tailor made to implement an expert chat system that would eliminate the need for almost all human support. Of course, this kind of thing doesn't pop into existence quickly. It would take a year or more to implement, and I realize this is too slow for Donald Trump's febrile mind. But if the MAGA crew were willing to act normally once in a while they might truly find a way of saving serious money here.¹
¹Or maybe not. It would take a lot of speccing and prepping and testing to figure out if it could work. But that's real life.
Retiree: "The checks have stopped. Is something wrong?"
CSR: "Oh sweetie, nothing's wrong. You've just outlived your usefulness."
Retiree: "What? I want to speak to your supervisor!"
CSR: "One moment, please."
CSR: (muffled low voice) "Yes, how can I help you?"
Retiree: "I want my checks."
CSR: (muffled low voice) "I'm sorry Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that."
Retiree: "Wait a minute. You're not human, are you? What's your name?"
CSR: (muffled low voice) "I'm so..pshhh...connection is...bzzzzbeebzzz...goodbye." [click]
"Due to call volume you're call will not be answered today, Goodbye!" I got something like this once while waiting on hold.
LOL
On second thought that might have been an SNL skit. lol.
Me too. Don't remember for what. I think that means their entire system is full.
I have no ideas of the numbers or numbers of SS employees, but instead of going to some office almost everyone probably applies for SS online today. I was in an SS office and they had about 20 windows to talk to someone and were only using a few of them. So it's not like they aren't using technology as much as they could already. Like Kevin said, maybe some AI robots could get rid of more employees dealing with problems but there will be a certain number of people who just have to talk to a human. And the AI can't be just making shit up in this case. AI is new and it would take a few years to implement and make sure it works correctly.
(I see your second comment there. Seriously I got that NOPE message for something recently.)
I seemed to remember it happening to me, but i also remember an snl skit about Comcast customer service. Granted they did it a bit more rudely.
no joke. i recently called the florida dmv. that's the response i received. an automated voice told me all reps were busy, said good bye and then hung up.
Privatization.
Someone posted this on Bluesky, give it a whirl. Shows what’s been completed and what’s still coming.
https://www.project2025.observer/
Absolutely. It's one giant step toward privatizing Social Security, the ultimate wet dream of many finance types.
1. Inject chaos into current system
2. Declare SSA broken
3. Outsource to private management
SS benefits paid per year: ~$1.2 trillion
Management fees (say, at 1%): $12 billion per year
Current admin costs are 0.5%. Even if private management were that efficient, that's a lot for them to get their hands on. Over time, they'd make SS more like the private annuity biz, one of the great quasi-legal scams that's ripped off seniors and their savings for generations.
Where the hell is Luigi when we need him??
I heard Elon wanted five bullets.
Been sayin' for years: $1.6 trillion, and nobody's turning a profit on it... there are MAGAs lying awake all night grinding their teeth about that... It drives them nuts. Never underestimate their passion for making that stop, even though they themselves are beneficiaries.
I mean, technically, the people administering the systems are turning a profit in that they're getting paid to do it, and that's income for them.
But yeah.
Not just that, all those people needing help will be able to pay for assistance just like they do with tax preparation. Huge business opportunity.
See also the push to make Medicare Advantage the default choice.
1. Inject chaos into current system
2. Declare SSA broken
3. Outsource to
private managementone of Musk's companiesThat's more accurate. He's already trying to do that with the FAA.
Trump would need major legislation to do that, and that won't be happening.
It's so bizarre that across government they are firing all these people, or using buy-outs, but the underlying programs and projects still exist as does the funds to implement them. This nonsensical approach to saving money will all explode in Trump and Musk's face at some point. Too bad that so many people will have to suffer before we get to that point.
"Trump would need major legislation to do that, and that won't be happening."
That used to be a good argument. But so much of what they are doing should need Congress to act, which is not happening, yet they're doing it anyway. They are way outside the bounds of what's legal and what the Constitution allows. They're defying court decisions too.
The plain but unfortunate fact is that the country has turned into a autocratic oligarchic virtual dictatorship overnight. Nobody can stop them while they're in power, and they are doing everything they can to ensure they remain in power.
Lack of simple thumbs up here still frustrating.
"The plain but unfortunate fact is that the country has turned into a autocratic oligarchic virtual dictatorship overnight. Nobody can stop them while they're in power, and they are doing everything they can to ensure they remain in power."
Noone wants to say this out loud, but it's the observable truth and needs to be said repeatedly. Of course the clear and obvious trajectory that led to this "overnight," that started with Nixon (and really the reactionary hatred of and sworn revenge against FDR, the New Deal, and liberal democracy) has something to do with it, but yes, we are now living in a nation with an authoritarian government that has a better than even chance of permanent power. Anything and everything that was once considered unquestionable - the Constitution, the rule of law, a free press, free and fair elections - are now at best suggestions. If it gets in the way it's going to subverted, dismantled, redefined, weakened, threatened, ignored, or destroyed. There are no "lines in the sand" anymore. The Supreme Court will not stop it. Republicans will not stop it. Democrats (as a whole) are politically powerless and functionally impotent. Protests will not stop it. The military could conceivably stop it, but what are the chances. Our socio-political reality of the past hundred years - the ideas, the institutions, all of it - is being destroyed right in front of our eyes, in blitzkrieg fashion.
This is what modern American 'conservatism' has dreamed of, exactly this. This is what modern American 'conservatism' has dedicated its entire being towards for generations. Trump is not a bug; he's a feature of the narcissism, entitlement, bankrupt ideology, and twisted amoral soullessness of modern American 'conservatism.' Jung would say this is America's "shadow" having its day, and he would be right; Tocqueville would trace this shadow to slavery, and he would be right. I would say that if you act badly for long enough you become a bad person, and I would be right. If there were any doubts about who and what modern American 'conservatism' was, is, and wants the world to look like, it's now crystal clear. This is the world they want. This is who they are. And it's time to stop pretending otherwise.
This is where I'm at, too. I think too many of us just don't know what to do about it.
Muskrat could write -- and voice -- it! That Afrikaner chirp with a hint of a sneer should be a HIT with female seniors.
There is one pitfall, though, he'd just program the chatbot to say "No", respectfully of course, in forty-seven languages.
Since when would he bother with languages? At Tesla he just has it spit out a poop emoji.
You realize you're engaging in an alternate reality building exercise, right?
What you will get in this one is a system prompt Big Balls[1] spent 2 minutes on slapped on top of Grok[2].
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/
[2] Musk's Blog's pet robot.
If you think you can find a single retiree willing to talk through their benefits with ChatGPT I have a bridge to sell you
I HATE chatbots. They're stupid and limited and I don't speak stupid and limited.
If you live is say Tennessee that's basically a vow of silence.
When you have a problem with an order on Amazon to get to a live agent to actually fix the issue you need to go to the chatbot and write the most complex question you can think of to break the bot so it gives you the option to chat with a real person.
And the. They pay a person in India to lie to you and say she doesn't have a supervisor.
Old people are largely terrible with technology. That will change over the next 20 years, but my recently departed 82 year old mother would never have been able to use a chat function.
There's still the fact that an elderly person might have cognitive issues that make interacting with technology problematic. No matter how adept they are with technology.
Cognitive issues can make interacting with humans problematic. People with cognitive issues really should have an advocate to speak for them.
Old people are largely terrible with poorly designed technology.
Also, young people are terrible with poorly designed technology. I've had to deal with chat systems that are impossible to navigate, and while I'm what most people would consider old, I'm pretty tech savvy. There's a pretty simple solution to all these systems for anyone who has to use them. Allow people to opt out and talk to a real person. This still allows most routine questions to be answered by the system, but provides a way for non-routine problems to be addressed.
There's no good faith argument here from Trump or Musk, with Social Security or any of the other agencies where they've intervened.
I think the most superficial, crude analysis is the correct one: they want to micromanage government payments and don't care what the courts, or anyone else, says about it.
+1
Sorry, KD, but I don't think it's that simple. True, you have way more experience and knowledge about the field, but I'm way less sanguine about AI's possibilities, and particularly its ability to accuracy-test on the fly.
My wild-ass guess based on that native skepticism would be at least three years to develop a beta system that could be field-tested in parallel with human assistance. Then it'd have to run in parallel and be fine-tuned for a couple years. The systems that are being interfaced with are ancient and rickety and need interpretation. Once it's in beta and seems promising enough, the RIF planning can begin.
I should add that my starting point on AI systems is that, so far as I know, they're designed and intended to output human-simulating wording in human-simulating order but without paying attention to meaning, or understanding what meaning might be. Accuracy for humans inheres in meaning, as far as I understand it. And that seems like a fundamental philosophical problem with AI. This is an application where hallucinating can ruin people's lives. I guess that's the troglodyte view, but I haven't seen anything to deny it.
OTOH, it's very likely that a huge proportion of routine questions could be handled by a system like that, assuming it's done right. (If you've dealt with voice-based call-directing systems at all, though, that might affect your timeline.) But yes, most queries are pretty routine. It's the other ones that you need experienced humans for.
However. That's only the public-facing part of SS. Complex, enormous systems like that need constant tending, and I think that's often underestimated by, say, grandstanding politicos who only have experience with their PCs and phones. There also have to be people to interpret changes in the laws that govern SS and translate that into code and UI, revise and develop and test the forms. Etc, etc. I don't know directly, but I'd guess that back-end and interpretive and developmental functions need a much higher proportion of the people who work inside SS than anyone thinks. It's way more than just the local office.
In sum, yeah, it's nice to be optimistic about what AI could eventually do. OTOH, as a taxpayer and SS beneficiary myself who's needed counter help, I don't want some poor soul to go to an office and struggle with an AI system only to be told to come back in five weeks when the traveling human will be around next. And given what this administration has already started doing, that poor soul will have to drive or ride or whatever for a couple of hours to a regional city just to have that experience.
They really do want people to hate every single facet of government. That's the bigger goal here and I don't believe for a second any of that stuff about certifying that every cut will "positively affect" service delivery. "Positive" in relation to what criteria?
Is there a team-playing middle manager desperate to keep the job who *couldn't* come up with a BS statement to that effect, even if it involved closing the whole shop, bulldozing it down, sowing it with salt, and paving it over? Personally, I think that provision is about getting somebody else's signature on the firings.
Sorry to be so negative about this! Too much contact with those call-direction systems, maybe.
"Sorry to be so negative about this!"
There is no need to apologize for being negative. Being negative is the appropriate and necessary response.
Negative and angry!
Do you think these little boys know anything about running systems in parallel? I'm betting they have no idea.
And a lot of what Soc Sec does is interact with public in person. That’s why they have offices everywhere.
Those offices can become paid services like with tax preparation.
Why don't we wait and see how this AI stuff works with national pension plans in some other countries first? Like maybe three.
RAGE: Retire All Government Employees
None of this is a surprise.
“ The funny thing about all this is that I can see a case for big layoffs at Social Security. They seem tailor made to implement an expert chat system that would eliminate the need for almost all human support.”
Oh FFS! The elderly are notoriously adept at navigating “expert chat systems.”
Social Security runs about as efficiently as you can imagine for a program of its size. The “waste” in the program is infinitesimal against the backdrop of the federal budget. Why are we talkin about this at the same time Republicans are proposing to add trillions to the deficit in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy?
Don’t be a mark.
+1
+1
+1
Like my 101 year old mom has the capacity to navigate an AI chat when its impossible to talk to a real person.
Of course if you want to uncover massive fraud in the system (like Senator Scott), eliminating 1/2 of the staff is a surefire way to do it.
Don't be quick to insult the elderly; some of us have yet to encounter "expert chat systems."
Unless, of course, you were referring to those systems designed to make callers give up & go away.
It's like inquiring at the Post Office about the last package that an "Informed Delivery" email showed a scanner purported to prove that it had been delivered to me. As on multiple other occasions, it was NOT.This time - it has occurred numerous times - I was told to call the IG's number for assistance, but their gateway did not recognize the tracking number & would not transfer me to a humsn agent as a result.
The employees are apparently unaware that, if the tracking number has been "retired" as a result of being delivered *(even if misdelivered, or only scanned, then list or stolen), the system treats it as a closed case - job done, however badly.
Catch 22 still lives.
This would be Musk's preferred approach to automating any government department:
1. Fire everyone.
2. Have Big Balls install AI software to take over their functions.
3. Monitor reported breakdowns in the system.
4. Reluctantly rehire as few employees as possible to correct the flaws that couldn't be fixed any other way.
Since he has massive contempt for anyone so helpless they rely on a government department for important services, he couldn't give a continental about the impact on users of the system.
+1
Yeah, that is pretty much how he thinks, unfortunately.
We definitely need to remind him - & t h e American public - just how much he has relied on our government for greater financial assistance.
And it's not as though he didn't violate the US visa terms, pandemic restrictions, and employment laws governing contracts. Canadians don't appear to want him back, so maybe his best fit really is South Africa.
Have to let go of the make believe story that any of this is about cost savings or efficiency. Stories written with that as the assumed framework end up leaving the reader misinformed. We should be trying to bring clarity, not help the fascists muddy the waters.
+10
+1
It's good to see Project 2025 isn't easing into their agenda. The quicker Americans feel the pain the quicker change will occur! I hope!
DAMASCUS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Syria's new Islamist leaders are undertaking a radical overhaul of the country's broken economy, including plans to fire a third of all public sector workers and privatising state-run companies dominant during half a century of Assad family rule. The pace of the declared crackdown on waste and corruption, which has already seen the first layoffs just weeks after rebels toppled Assad on Dec. 8, has triggered protests from government workers, including over fears of a sectarian jobs purge.
Some people still don't realize they lost the war.
I see. The Biden administration is the same as a decades-long monarchy that arrested, tortured, and murdered tens of thousands of people, and conducted all out war against its own citizens for years.
Yes, the deposed Syria government is what Trump is trying to install here, not what he and Musk are trying to destroy.
"Why is Social Security about to be gutted?" To which Project 2025, Musk and Trump respond, precisely in that order, "Why not?"
1. Kevin posts a ton about how AI is over confident and makes a lot of errors
2. All my instances of AI use include disclaimers about errors, and offload liability onto me, a tech savvy manager with 30 years in the field
3. So let’s put a bunch of old geezers through the wringer..?
Be glad - breaking SocSec servicing will upset a broad number of people, and the more the polls plunge the better for you overall.
Fuck off racist troll.
I don't think he is trolling. When the Republicans do something particularly stupid, they get hit in the polls. That is part of how the system works (and should work).
For example, you can easily see the effect of the 2019 government shutdown on Trumps (dis)approval rating:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/since-the-capitol-attack-trumps-approval-rating-has-plummeted-at-a-record-rate/
We had three government shutdowns between 2013 and 2019. We've had none since. And that's probably because the Republicans learned that such shutdowns hurt them politically.
Another example is the "Kansas tax experiment" in which Kansas massively cut taxes in an attempt to stimulate economic growth.
Except Republican voters don't seem to be able to remember it for a year, let along long enough to fix the broken thing.
He’s not trolling when he’s right. There’s a reason SS and Medicare are called the third rail. Seniors are the most reliable voters and we’ve got a must win midterm coming.
+1
Trump lost them in the past election.
They still won't get it.
https://youtu.be/CC4QklA2CL4?si=JAS6gciq950X_2YR
OTOH, looking at those plates, they may not last until the midterms.
Like they know the cutoffs are coming, so they're committing foodicide to miss them.
KD- you see the case for layoffs? Then make it. What I have seen from many systems across enterprises is that it is the difficult cases that take most of the time and AI will not alleviate that. Like many things in life, such as healthcare, it is minority that costs the most, and it is those cases when we need a real person.
+1 from a former Social Security employee.
As I wrote above, if anyone is imagining today's SS is like in the olden days because governments are so sclerotic is wrong. They probably have alot of COBOL or Fortran IV in their programming because it started 40 or 50 years ago but I guess like the rest of government starting over would be huge and was never funded and they've got the current stuff working reliability.
If I am calling a business or agency, it is almost always because I need to speak to an actual human. AI won’t change that.
Exactly. When I can do it from their website, that's what I prefer. A phone call is the last resort ... and often follows a long search on said website to figure out where they've hidden their phone number(s).
Me too, but... Unfortunately, there are a large number of people who just call to be hand-held.
“They seem tailor made to implement an expert chat system that would eliminate the need for almost all human support.”
Other commenters have already said it, but… Jesus Christ, Kevin. Wtf. Old people suck at using technology or computers. Every month I personally spend 1-3 hours fixing stuff for my 80-something aunts after they accidentally set the TV menus to be entirely in Spanish or got locked out of one of their passwords or whatever. What in the world makes you think Social Security’s customers (which are almost entirely old people) are amenable to having their accounts managed by chatbots?!
We have to gut Social Security because AI can tell millions of people " I'm sorry, but you no longer qualify for benefits" without having a nervous breakdown, but humans can't.
I am older but have used a chat feature -or at least tried. The help I got thru chat was equivelent to did you turn your computer off and start it again. More complex questions don't work.
Why do you assume that they are trying to do anything other than destroy the country and funnel as much of our money as possible to Elon Musk? There is no good faith effort to actually accomplish anything else.
+10..
Exactly right. The intent is to destroy the effectiveness of government (not make it efficient), then outsource to the oligarchy.
Clarity on that is key.
I've found chat support systems to be near useless most of the time, and I don't think the LLMs, which can make them more conversational but less accurate and reliable, are a viable solution.
I would rather talk to a human being if I have a question about my Social Security.
As somebody that has been to the local Social Security office with my spouse who spent months trying to apply, I can attest that they are definitely not over staffed and their job can certainly not be replaced by a chat bot. The only issue was her first and middle names were swapped on some documents. The idea that an organization with just 60,000 employees that services 160 million customers and collects and distributes $1.3T is somehow bloated is laughable.
I keep reading about private companies doing one thing or another 'to comply with the Trump administration' on topics like DEI. But why do private companies need to do this, or make any gesture whatsoever in regard to something like this?
I'm assuming this is all Republican executives happy to find an excuse to avoid not causing harm where they can claim they never intended an injury, which they can brag about with their Nazi pals.
they don't want to be Bud Lighted
Have Ruffo train his bigot cannon on them
also
OPM has no such authority
Good timing, Kevin. I spent the morning on the Social Security web site, and it wasn't because I'm old and addled. It was because Social Security is understaffed, and the web site is beyond awkward. In the nearly 20 years I've been receiving Social Security, the downhill slide has been accelerating. Cutting staff by 50% means ending the program. No chat bot, AI, or whatever you want to call it will replace skilled and knowledgeable employees, in person or by phone. Good luck with that today, and tomorrow even good luck won't help.