The Pentagon’s procurement system is so broken they are calling on Watson

Ten years ago this headline would have read, "Pentagon hires IBM to help optimize procurement". But the Watson brand has become popular with the media, in large part due to the exposure from the Jeopardy exhibition (which is seeming like a better and better investment in terms of marketing returns). I'm not sure if the re-branding will be enough to really change IBM's fortunes, but does seem to be helping them in the short term. As companies get better at using open source tools and expert knowledge to leverage their own data, it's going to get harder for tech consulting companies of all types.

Edit: 'this' in the last sentence ambiguously refers to the nauseatingly lengthy and tedious process currently in place.

Maybe a few years from now, we'll be seeing the developers working on Watson deciding to retire to private islands at the age of 40.

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite – just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.1

In the book, you don’t discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski – the Unabomber.

The craptastic [1-4] F-35 has ties to 42 states plus Puerto Rico if I counted correctly [0]. That's one of the reasons why it can't be canceled.

The defense contractors want the systems confusing so they can spread out production across as many congressional districts as possible in order to maintain clout. (A vote to cancel the Radioactive Ferret Launcher, is a vote kill 50 jobs in your hometown!). Also confusion allows for ample padding.

Another problem that isn't talked about is that since World War II, and especially since the end of the draft, the number of people that have seen how the military actually works, is pretty small, yet at the same time it's standing as an institution has increased. Arguably this is because people only see the recruiting videos, and not the political bureaucracy that the military (and all large organizations) actually is. Congress doesn't push back when the military and their contractors do... well asinine stuff. Say try to make a one-size-fits all fighter that, that has never worked. Or makes a carrier without testing it.[5]

[0] https://www.f35.com/about/economic-impact-map [1] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/everything-wrong-with-the-f... [2] http://warisboring.com/articles/the-f-35-is-still-horribly-b... [3] http://warisboring.com/articles/we-have-proof-the-u-s-air-fo... [4] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-... [5] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-11/navy-order...