Background

The Social Security Administration's (SSA) computer systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years, but DOGE wants it done in months.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Risks and Concerns

Experts warn that a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, and the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.

One of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se, but not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions could have significant consequences.

Previous Attempts

This proposed migration isn't the first time SSA has tried to move away from COBOL. In 2017, SSA announced a plan to receive hundreds of millions in funding to replace its core systems, predicting that it would take around five years to modernize these systems.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the agency pivoted away from this work to focus on more public-facing projects.

Challenges Ahead

To migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code.

Additionally, DOGE would need to develop tests to ensure the new system's outputs match the previous one, which would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months.