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ai.gov

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Re: AI.gov

#111

Post by 93po »

nerdponx wrote: post #95
Racing0461 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why add a section on immigration? The stuff on the page is already known. They just add it to cross off a checkbox of what they wanted to signal. And its just a generic description of the visas and nothing localized to th visa type and ai. And for the other commenters calling me "right wing', my views are pretty much '04 Obama. It's just telling how far off the rails we have gone.

Obama wasn't exactly known for his progressive immigration policy.

Kids in cages was definitely happening under Obama and also now with Biden

Re: AI.gov

#112

Post by atlasunshrugged »

There are a lot of folks interested in or concerned with what the government is doing here. I would just mention that going to government on a lower salary isn't a binary thing and you can do impactful work for 1-3 years. Places like TechCongress, Presidential Innovation Fellows, and myriad other fellowships have popped up to support this.

Re: AI.gov

#113

Post by robg »

I was a Presidential Innovation Fellow for almost three years at FDA / Veterans Affairs, happy to answer any questions. The program is looking for industry experiences to better inform and shape government policies.

Re: AI.gov

#114

Post by no_wizard »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #73
tomohelix wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think you'd be surprised. Plenty of people are interested in going into public service and especially policy related work. The high industry salaries can actually be a positive here, they allow workers to be FIRE'd in a decade or less. At that point they can switch to a lower stress/higher impact gov job and the salary being lower isn't a huge problem.

Statistically, this doesn't really happen though. The % of people who make enough to adopt a realistic FIRE strategy are not going into govt service in large numbers, not by a long shot. Even the more traditional retiring early crowd isn't going into public service

The govt has record vacancy at the local, state, and federal levels for jobs[0][1][2]

Even taking steps to lower barriers to entry, they can't fill them.

[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2023/02/09/amid...

[1]: https://www.axios.com/2022/07/11/government-jobs-pandemic-re...

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20231002185558/https://www.nytim...

Re: AI.gov

#115

Post by nonrandomstring »

KineticLensman wrote: post #101
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…

> that approximates the British civil service, which is actually highly functional and effective Not when it procuring large systems, IT or otherwise. As routinely discussed and complained about by the National Audit Office (NAO) [0]. The civil service relies massively on external consultants and contractors to achieve anything. [0] https://www.nao.org.uk/

Sadly our track record on IT is disgraceful, yes. Billion pound IT black holes are strewn across health, education, defence.... It's a legacy of cronyism and corruption from the incumbent Tory "government". Consider Sunak's connections. OTOH our Civil Service remains a beacon of competence in a sea of insane policies, reshuffles, resignations, criminal scandals and total absenteeism.

It runs on "values", plus a bit of spit and prayer. There's no money.

Running something equivalent to the International Atomic Energy Agency but for AI will need funds and support of the same order.

Re: AI.gov

#116

Post by nightpool »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #115
KineticLensman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that approximates the British civil service, which is actually highly functional and effective Not when it procuring large systems, IT or otherwise. As routinely discussed and complained about by the National Audit Office (NAO) [0]. The civil service relies massively on external consultants and contractors to achieve anything. [0] https://www.nao.org.uk/

Sadly our track record on IT is disgraceful, yes. Billion pound IT black holes are strewn across health, education, defence.... It's a legacy of cronyism and corruption from the incumbent Tory "government". Consider Sunak's connections. OTOH our Civil Service remains a beacon of competence in a sea of insane policies, reshuffles, resignations, criminal scandals and total absenteeism. It runs on "values", plus a bit o…

Which parts of the UK Civil Service would you say are more competent / effective in your personal experience? From the outside (US) perspective it's hard to see it as anything except the same-old bureaucracy and crazy rules that make it impossible to have any positive impact in America. (For example, the UK rules for getting a passport basically make it impossible to find somebody to countersign your application unless you happen to know a lot of lawyers / doctors professionally)

Re: AI.gov

#117

Post by junofan »

jjcm wrote: post #94

The Presidential Innovation Fellow is the highest level role they're offering as part of this. For this, the requirements are "mid-senior/executive career professional experience in a subject matter expertise" with "experience collaborating with and leading cross-functional teams". The requirements feel analogous to a staff/principal level role in the software industry, so just for comparison here's the compensation…

Yeah but your country needs you, and that’s actually pretty good pay. I think tech would be a little bit broader if more people considered serving for a year or two.

Re: AI.gov

#118

Post by davisr »

jjcm wrote: post #94

The Presidential Innovation Fellow is the highest level role they're offering as part of this. For this, the requirements are "mid-senior/executive career professional experience in a subject matter expertise" with "experience collaborating with and leading cross-functional teams". The requirements feel analogous to a staff/principal level role in the software industry, so just for comparison here's the compensation…

Why did you assume that everyone is motivated by money? After $100k, what difference does it make for one's happiness?

Personally, I wouldn't want such a shallow individual working in my government.

Re: AI.gov

#119

Post by HDThoreaun »

no_wizard wrote: post #114
HDThoreaun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be surprised. Plenty of people are interested in going into public service and especially policy related work. The high industry salaries can actually be a positive here, they allow workers to be FIRE'd in a decade or less. At that point they can switch to a lower stress/higher impact gov job and the salary being lower isn't a huge problem.

Statistically, this doesn't really happen though. The % of people who make enough to adopt a realistic FIRE strategy are not going into govt service in large numbers, not by a long shot. Even the more traditional retiring early crowd isn't going into public service The govt has record vacancy at the local, state, and federal levels for jobs[0][1][2] Even taking steps to lower barriers to entry, they can't fill them.…

I think the key here is that the job has to be intriguing enough. Working on shaping US AI policy is something that many people would sacrifice quite a bit to do. Pushing paper not so much. Most fed jobs are on the paper pushing side of things, which also makes the actually interesting jobs harder to fill due to the reputation for bureaucracy. Probably why they made this fancy recruiting site.

Re: AI.gov

#120

Post by claytongulick »

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…

I was recruited by, and damn near did a tour with USDS.

I ended up passing on it.

They wanted an "entrepreneur in residence" to help drive change, which sounded great to me.

Then they did the whole "we need you to keep in a cup" thing.

I wouldn't have had any problem passing the test, but I told the recruiter "this is where the change needs to start".

There's no way I can attract and retain good technical talent if we're still ruling out candidates because of smoking pot.

Plus, I find the whole "pee in a cup" thing demeaning, intrusive and offensive.

The recruiter and I were both very frustrated by the situation. I wasn't the first candidate they'd lost over the issue.

I don't know if it's still like that, but the feds seriously need to get their act together in hiring process before we can improve the quality of government systems.

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