FFRDCs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

If RAND research is so well-respected that someone would want to steal your valor, and you hate it so much there, why are you still there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

If RAND research is so well-respected that someone would want to steal your valor, and you hate it so much there, why are you still there?

Jason is purging all the legacy staff for GER fellows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

If RAND research is so well-respected that someone would want to steal your valor, and you hate it so much there, why are you still there?

Jason is purging all the legacy staff for GER fellows.

I meant to type that Jason SEEMS to be purging, no inside info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

If RAND research is so well-respected that someone would want to steal your valor, and you hate it so much there, why are you still there?

Jason is purging all the legacy staff for GER fellows.

All the more reason to preemptively get out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

Another RANDite who concurs this correctly summarizes things.

[Anonymous]

What is GER?

[Anonymous]

GER is just another EA funded source of bad reports, even worse research, & a goal of fitting a narrative of bs existential risks. They can’t publish anything of substance and their leadership are incompetent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is GER?

it sounds like gastroesophageal reflux.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GER is just another EA funded source of bad reports, even worse research, & a goal of fitting a narrative of bs existential risks. They can’t publish anything of substance and their leadership are incompetent.

does anyone in ger leadership even have a phd? their vp is a lawyer, his deputy has a music degree, the meselson center director only has a bachelors degree, and they all came out of the biden admin. no wonder their work is trash. it looks like they started a substack to share their shower thoughts on ai risks. embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

GER produces nothing but fantasy output as if staffed by a bunch of frustrated science fiction authors. This is an example that makes me want to cancel my subscription.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/artificial-intelligence-geopolitics-worst-about-ai

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GER is just another EA funded source of bad reports, even worse research, & a goal of fitting a narrative of bs existential risks. They can’t publish anything of substance and their leadership are incompetent.

does anyone in ger leadership even have a phd? their vp is a lawyer, his deputy has a music degree, the meselson center director only has a bachelors degree, and they all came out of the biden admin. no wonder their work is trash. it looks like they started a substack to share their shower thoughts on ai risks. embarrassing.

Only at RAND could someone who started and ran a research org at Google be dismissed as unqualified because he doesn't have a PhD! Never change.

[Anonymous]

RAND sounds messy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are FFRDC projects returning — either getting g new ones or turning old ones back on?

RAND is still way down on sales for all of their FFRDCs.

Business is fine at RAND.

Rand Corp is still hiring…..

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External_Career_Site/

Not so much. 10 research jobs, of which 8 are AI, one is on China stuff, and one is for a management slot that may also be filled internally. No big open “economist” or “engineer” positions, like in better times.

Most of these jobs are 1-year contract positions in GER which has a lot of non-phds who are cosplaying as researchers by writing opinion pieces.

I'm sorry they're failing to meet your normal RAND standards for lit reviews and Stata code.

I'm sorry that all of your reports have to be turned into "expert insights" because nobody will sign-off on them.

Not mine. I had a lot of issues with RAND, so I'm not there. See how that goes? You, too, could do that if you had external options.

In better times, GER would be an amusement, a collection of navel-gazing coders who cannot compose the English language and so invented a next-word predictor that could - then marketed it as a super-intelligent force that will take over the planet and use humans for fuel.
Unfortunately, GER has virtually nothing to do with what RAND provides at core and placing it in the dominant position it now occupies provides little more than charge codes for a few legacy staff and paid intellectual masturbation for a new cadre of coders who could not find real work in commercial industry or as SETAs. I am not surprised that they use the unearned gravitas of being a RAND researcher to publish idiotic commentaries.
I can vouch for the ridiculously poor quality of the resulting GER products - the outcomes upon which RAND relies to maintain its integrity. Crap.
As for AI being the future, that is hard to argue with. I will declare emphatically that large language models and all the rainbow of flavors erupting from the ass thereof including retrieval augmented generators and LLM-based coding tools are most definitely not the future. Resources should be devoted to re-purposing data centers as skating rinks and homeless shelters. The cult that has grown from the posturing of scores of venture capitalists makes Elizabeth Holmes look like the Pope. No, artificial general intelligence is not around the corner. No, artificial neural networks are not the medium for AGI. No, looking for some practical way to make money from LLMs will not recover the investment. Yes, the current crop of students and researchers leveraging LLMs instead of doing the actual work degrades the net human intellectual capacity of any given field going forward - especially given the perception of near-term savings in time and resources.

It is artificial stupidity.

Oxford University faced similar attempts by well-funded Effective Altruism (EA) groups to co-opt its brand for EA-aligned research via the now-defunct 'Future of Humanity Institute' (FHI). The faculty eventually shut FHI down due to concerns about research quality and promoting a quasi-religious EA agenda. The RAND situation sounds eerily similar to what happened at Oxford. I believe RAND's CEO worked at FHI for a while under its president, Nick Bostrom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MITRE is having another layoff the week of Aug 11. Overstaffed by at least 600 people. Will impact all of MITRE, so they say, but it's clear some areas of MITRE are in bigger trouble than others.

This will be round 3. Likely another round September/October. September AND October (rounds 4 and 5?) or September OR October (round 4?)? Who knows.

Will the downsizing affect teams/projects based out of Boston or McLean more? Are DoD and IC projects more likely to stay afloat than FAA, for example?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MITRE is having another layoff the week of Aug 11. Overstaffed by at least 600 people. Will impact all of MITRE, so they say, but it's clear some areas of MITRE are in bigger trouble than others.

This will be round 3. Likely another round September/October. September AND October (rounds 4 and 5?) or September OR October (round 4?)? Who knows.

Will the downsizing affect teams/projects based out of Boston or McLean more? Are DoD and IC projects more likely to stay afloat than FAA, for example?

Only senior management really know the answer to this.