Absolutely not. It wasn’t a failure, it’s job was entirely to assist other agencies modernize their tooling. As an auxiliary program, it helped others to without taking the credit. Let me ask: are IT departments losses to you?

The gov is _always_ inefficient if you consider profit to be the only indicator of success. The government isn’t here to make a buck, it is here to help its populace. The free tax filing helped its populace, modernizing the passport application process helped the populace, and doing these things (and many more) in a way that is stable without interrupting the system is extremely impressive.

DOGE will not do anything useful, they aren’t adding, only removing. Elon hired children he could easily convince to do the dirty work, he will proceed to take credit for what they do (if it is good) and blame them for any bad outcomes. He knows nothing about AI other than what he’s read in pop-sci books, headlines, or sci-fi novels, so he won’t be iterating on 18f (or anything) with AI. If anything good happens, it will be in spite of this terrible person.

How he has managed to maintain his smart facade to you is beyond me. The tipping point for me was when he said ‘he knew more about manufacturing than anyone alive.’ Imagine, buying a car company, hiring smart people to run it, and then believing that their collective knowledge is somehow yours.

He is an insecure person who wants to look impressive and has never managed to find anything he is actually good at. He even cheats on his video games, refusing to be not at the top.

You claim 18F was a failure. What evidence do you have for this claim?

I am familiar with their direct file work (https://directfile.irs.gov/), which saves tax filers hundreds of dollars, keeps money out of massive rentseekers like TurboTax, and enables the IRS to function more effectively.

How is this a failure?

> DOGE) that is supported by AI and the amazing team that Elon has put together

This is a joke, right? The team is far from amazing and had very quickly done a slew of irresponsible, illegal, and harmful actions.

/s, right? We all saw what the jokers did with their security practices a few weeks ago. I assume that their technical incompetence is clear even to MAGA devotees.

I have no idea what you are basing this claim on, although it seems in stark contrast to the evidence provided by other commenters in this thread.

AI is not a replacement for engineering expertise and deep understanding of the actual user problems that you are trying to solve.

Any 19yo at DOGE can have Cursor pump out shitty web portals without regard for the problem context or actual end user.

But that’s not what engineering is about and it’s depressing to see people celebrate and advocate for that kind of mediocrity.

You forgot the /s

Some people won’t realize you’re trolling