51–60 of 266 posts
I predict the rise of anti-technology cults as the moral panic over AI and “Social” takes hold. The millions of displaced workers and disillusioned social-users will need refuge.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Up to" $180k for expertise in a field that is as technical and in as much demand as AI is low. For experts in AI, I wouldn't be surprised if their total comp in larger tech companies is around $500k-$1M. You can expect to find some experts with a stronger sense of civic duty willing to take a pay cut to work for the government, but when you're talking about multiple multiples of your salary, you're going to be left…
Usually too, the top end of the salary is never going to be offered for a govt job, because they need to be able to give you raises at your level before your next promotion. There's lots of hoops that you end up going through with gov jobs that don't exist in private industry, like pay band caps and promotion schedules that are most often seniority based rather than merit based.
It is stable, and the retirement benefits are really great. The healthcare used to be spectacular but for newer hires the healthcare benefits are more in line with what you get at a private company with good benefits that isn't a FAANG. IE, you'll still have to contribute, the government doesn't pay 100% cost of insurance anymore.
source: I used to work for the government, and know many government workers via my past work, friends, and family at the state and federal level
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can we get an AI Force as well? In case you actually didn’t know [1]. [1] https://www.ai.mil/
I think the grandparent comment was talking about making AI Force a separate military branch, rather than a joint office under DoD. Not arguing one way or another myself, I think it makes sense for it, at least for now, to be a joint office under DoD (like it currently is, according to your link). Just wanted to make it clear that CDAO is probably not what the grandparent poster had in mind when they made that commen…
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.
Oh, look at the tortured path that .io dollars take, since it's technically a TLD for an occupied country, being operated by someone (Ethos Capital) with no connection to or permission from the original or current inhabitants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io#History
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…
There's an effort to train civilian acquisition professionals on how to buy and build better software, but they are pretty quickly hired by contractors or the commercial sector since their new skillset fetches a larger salary than what the government can pay (even with promotion).
I agree there needs to be a special schedule. I do think an overhaul of the civilian service is worth exploring.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Most of these jobs on the other hand seem to be US citizens only. Some require a security clearance which a lot of AI experts would probably rather NOT have.
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…
Do you have a source for AWS employing 15K H1B holders? That's an insane number!