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AI.gov

ai.gov

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Re: AI.gov

#31

Post by tsunamifury »

So far the support of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Cisco/Akami have given the US government a business, intelligence, and social engineering platform the likes the world has never seen before, and still people today wildly undervalue its power in the world today.

They have effectively deplatformed Europe, South America, the Middle East and Asia, put anyone but China within second reach from a mass data collection perspective, and expanded the economic hegemony of the US more deeply and completely than the military ever could.

The US is now on the verge of the second great breakthrough of mass automation of that data, intelligence and action. I am honestly shocked that this third stage of American Dominance has not be countered by any other nation save China, and even they're only defensively. America's global brain drain might have been the single most effective strategy that the planet has seen so far...

The only question is if the rest of the world is going to wake up and counter this.

Re: AI.gov

#32

Post by tomohelix »

godelski wrote: post #24
empath-nirvana wrote: post #9

The US government can't legally pay the salaries required to find AI experts right now (just look at the salaries on the open positions). So all this work will end up being done by contractors who _can_ pay those salaries while the contractors skim off the top. The US really needs a special schedule for software developers if they want technical expertise in house (and they really should have technical expertise in h…

Some of the jobs go up to $180k/yr. That's not too bad considering it doesn't look like it requires DC location. But others like the grad assistant for $22/hr is laughable. Still, I agree there's a problem with salaries not being competitive. I've interned at DOE labs before and lots of people don't stay for long.

I mean the grad assistant is basically a post-doc position isn't it? Considering the stability and perks from a government job, I think that is not too far from market rate.

But go up and those 180k jobs would be easily 300-400K in the industry. I doubt anyone who can do that work would be interested in a measly 180K. Unless it comes with a visa...

Re: AI.gov

#33

Post by ryanklee »

godelski wrote: post #24
empath-nirvana wrote: post #9

The US government can't legally pay the salaries required to find AI experts right now (just look at the salaries on the open positions). So all this work will end up being done by contractors who _can_ pay those salaries while the contractors skim off the top. The US really needs a special schedule for software developers if they want technical expertise in house (and they really should have technical expertise in h…

Some of the jobs go up to $180k/yr. That's not too bad considering it doesn't look like it requires DC location. But others like the grad assistant for $22/hr is laughable. Still, I agree there's a problem with salaries not being competitive. I've interned at DOE labs before and lots of people don't stay for long.

$180k/yr isn't bad in the context of Sr SWE in medium-cost-of-living areas. But in the context of ML/AI, it's pretty rotten no matter where. Hard to get the right people if that's the top.

Re: AI.gov

#34

Post by thatguysaguy »

tsunamifury wrote: post #31

So far the support of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Cisco/Akami have given the US government a business, intelligence, and social engineering platform the likes the world has never seen before, and still people today wildly undervalue its power in the world today. They have effectively deplatformed Europe, South America, the Middle East and Asia, put anyone but China within second reach from a mass data coll…

No one else is really capable of making this technology at the level of the US, besides maybe China. Europe has the brainpower for sure, but they don't seem to be able to leverage it into actual innovation.

Re: AI.gov

#35

Post by iAMkenough »

jmac01 wrote: post #28
aduffy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recoding America[1] is an excellent book about this problem, but it extends a lot further than just contractors charging inflated rates. The government itself has a culture that is so averse to trying new things and compliance with existing policy that it's actually dangerous to the careers of civil servants to do anything innovative, because that is one of the only things they can actually be fired for. The solution…

So what you're saying is, government is too..... Conservative? :p Maybe we are just feeling the effects that the modern American "left" is basically just the American right of the 60s lol We need some actual liberals who aren't just socially liberal but also willing to spend money on new ideas.

Trouble there is whenever spending is promised for new ideas, it becomes campaign fodder for someone to stop that spending because "taxes are too high" or whatever line gets conservative voters foaming at the mouth.

It's an uphill battle to get new funding, and talking points move faster than budget approvals and program results.

Re: AI.gov

#36

Post by ak_111 »

Off topic, my initial reaction was it would have been more of a flex if they managed to get the domain gov.ai, since US gov already owns the .gov TLD, but it turns out that this domain is already used by government of Anguilla which already owns the ai TLD.

Looking into this further, I also learnt that in fact selling ai TLD has become a non-trivial part of Anguilla's GDP since chatgpt was released.

Re: AI.gov

#37

Post by CobrastanJorji »

On their "immigrate" page ( https://ai.gov/immigrate/ ) , they say "We must attract, train, and retain the most talented workforce in the world," and mention H-1Bs as a part of that solution. But federal law caps H-1Bs at 60,000 a year, of which over a quarter goes right to Amazon and AWS (EDIT: Turns out I'm wrong about this!). Does the government as an employer get to circumvent the cap? Or are they suggesting that a larger share should be used for AI stuff? Or are they advocating raising the cap? Or is it just a meaningless website?

Re: AI.gov

#38

Post by waynesonfire »

aduffy wrote: post #25
empath-nirvana wrote: post #9

The US government can't legally pay the salaries required to find AI experts right now (just look at the salaries on the open positions). So all this work will end up being done by contractors who _can_ pay those salaries while the contractors skim off the top. The US really needs a special schedule for software developers if they want technical expertise in house (and they really should have technical expertise in h…

Recoding America[1] is an excellent book about this problem, but it extends a lot further than just contractors charging inflated rates. The government itself has a culture that is so averse to trying new things and compliance with existing policy that it's actually dangerous to the careers of civil servants to do anything innovative, because that is one of the only things they can actually be fired for. The solution…

Sounds like the TLDR is privatize the profits?

Re: AI.gov

#39

Post by [deleted] »

iAMkenough wrote: post #35
jmac01 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, government is too..... Conservative? :p Maybe we are just feeling the effects that the modern American "left" is basically just the American right of the 60s lol We need some actual liberals who aren't just socially liberal but also willing to spend money on new ideas.

Trouble there is whenever spending is promised for new ideas, it becomes campaign fodder for someone to stop that spending because "taxes are too high" or whatever line gets conservative voters foaming at the mouth. It's an uphill battle to get new funding, and talking points move faster than budget approvals and program results.

[deleted]

Re: AI.gov

#40

Post by godzillabrennus »

jmac01 wrote: post #28
aduffy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recoding America[1] is an excellent book about this problem, but it extends a lot further than just contractors charging inflated rates. The government itself has a culture that is so averse to trying new things and compliance with existing policy that it's actually dangerous to the careers of civil servants to do anything innovative, because that is one of the only things they can actually be fired for. The solution…

So what you're saying is, government is too..... Conservative? :p Maybe we are just feeling the effects that the modern American "left" is basically just the American right of the 60s lol We need some actual liberals who aren't just socially liberal but also willing to spend money on new ideas.

We spend plenty of money on ideas. We need to pay for results. We should stop pretending government is ever going to be good at buying/building tech and change procurement to pay for innovative results. How many $50 or $100M government tech projects have to fail before we let them post an RFP that basically says do this thing in this amount of time for this amount of money with payment after we get the “thing” in time. I know an entire industry of innovative people (tech startups) who would find a way to get it done.
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