Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
65 million people in the US currently receive Social Security benefits. They're considering Java as a replacement.
The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.
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SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.
Hundreds of smart programmers set up the system, however archaic, that works, but I’m sure the geniuses at the facemelt brain trust think they’re actually demigods who can just hack everything with their superior intellect.
That’s awesome dude.
The myth of the 100x programmer. But now worse because of Dunning-Krueger cases running LLMs.
"10x" programmers just didn't properly test their code. I know because when I was expected to do 10x type work and push a feature in a day or less, I wrote zero tests and ended up introducing a ton of latent bugs that required fixing later.