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ai.gov

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Re: AI.gov

#171

Post by WD40forRust »

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…

There's good reason I run GrapheneOS and Qubes OS exclusively on my devices, and I route everything coming out of my systems over Proton and Tor (ofc not nested xD)...

Re: AI.gov

#172

Post by claytongulick »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #140
claytongulick wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I mean no offense, but this is sort of, with regard to your principles at least, cutting off one's nose to spite one's face? I get that incremental reform is frustrating, but here you had a chance to enter an org you know needed changes, and you blew it because you refused to take a basic drug test that you openly state you could've passed easily. Like, it's bullshit that they asked, it is an invasion of privacy, it…

I get that perspective, and I did think about it a lot.

Understand that the position was mostly charity work - the pay was negligible for a six month contract. I was ok with that part - I was motivated to help, not by compensation.

The intrusive testing, coupled with bad compensation is a root cause of the problem IMHO.

I think organizations only really change when they feel pain. In this case, my hope is that the pain of repeatedly losing good candidates is enough to drive policy change (at the congressional or executive level).

I don't think it helps to try to "change from the inside" in this case. If I (and other candidates) just roll with it, there's no incentive for change.

Re: AI.gov

#173

Post by pjlegato »

davisr wrote: post #118
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.

The cost of living varies widely in different areas. In many parts of the United States, 100k is a very low salary, due to extremely high living costs.

For example, the government classifies a family of four with an income of $149,100 as "low income" in San Francisco, and thus eligible for government welfare benefits.[1]

The median house price in San Francisco is currently $1.3 million.[2]

An average 776 square foot apartment (which is rather small for a family of four) rents for $3,336 a month.[3]

[1] https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/grants-and-f...

[2] https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/housing-m...

[3] https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/sa...

Re: AI.gov

#174

Post by robertlagrant »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #69
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...

The sentiment today is the idea of the post doctoral position is also exploitation. Paying PhDs to do cutting edge work for $50k a year is a joke. In n out managers probably get more than that now.

As in it's a joke if they accept it?

Re: AI.gov

#175

Post by ajcp »

93po wrote: post #109
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…

I assume they're targeting people who aren't competitive candidates for big high paying companies. There's plenty of super mediocre to bad developers out there (myself included) that would never stand a chance applying there. I've been developing software for a decade and the most I've ever made is $110k, and that was in high cost of living areas like Denver and Seattle.

Actually quite the opposite: they're specifically targeting people with FAANG and/or Ivy League pedigrees.

The government can't afford these people straight up, so they slap "Presidential" or "White House" on a fellowship to make it more attractive.

And it is; a Presidential or White House fellowship is as much a resume maker as working at a FAANG or an Ivy League degree.

Re: AI.gov

#176

Post by tsunamifury »

azinman2 wrote: post #161
72mena wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "America's global brain drain might have been the single most effective strategy" The website has a section titled "Bring your AI Skills to the U.S.", and then a button with this label "Learn about pathways to work in the U.S.". This is very encouraging. And it reminded me of Eric Schmidt's recommendation on this topic [1], which was published on the final report of the National Security Commission on Artificial In…

I find that very interesting given Eric Schmidt took citizenship in Cyprus, and to my knowledge, not because he has any prior tie to that country. If he really believed in the U.S. then he shouldn’t be getting late-in-life (post-billionaire) citizenship elsewhere.

When you are a billionaire the greatest thing you can afford is self-contradictory behavior.

Re: AI.gov

#177

Post by tsunamifury »

userabchn wrote: post #136
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…

I think the foreign influence operations that aim to increase division in American society and promote equality of outcome are an attempt to counter it, not by outcompeting America but by hobbling it, seem to be somewhat effective.

Yea that seems to be the idea -- try to constrain America as much as possible if you can't beat it on its own terms. However US military as grown such that it likely can fight a 3 front war and most other nations would rather the sweet sweet trade deals they get by cooperating over some obscure ideological vision of a world without america.

Re: AI.gov

#178

Post by akira2501 »

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…

> and they really should have technical expertise in house

Why? Moreover.. how would any of this expertise actually get applied top down in a federal system? How would any department making purchases or technology decisions actually benefit from such an apparatus? Wouldn't it be more sensible for them to manage those purchasing and operational decisions the way they typically do? Having the expertise being more local to the actual deployments?

There's this "federal czar" ideology that comes from the 1950s, but I think the spread of technology and social development has reached a peak where this centralized expertise model actually holds us back. If we are /actually/ at a point where something like "ai.gov" should credibly exist, then we're definitely at a point where centralized bureaucracy isn't an adequate approach to manage outcomes.

Re: AI.gov

#179

Post by ajcp »

BD103 wrote: post #90

Occasionally I enjoy viewing the HTML of websites to try to deduce what web framework they are using. I couldn't figure it out for this one, but here are some things that I find interesting: - On line 90 of the homepage, there is a single script called `document.createElement('main');` - The website uses the ` ` tag to support multiple sources for images - script.js on the website has ANSI art of the US flag ( https:…

I do too!

I cracked open an internal tool we had one of the big consulting firms build for us to see why it sucked so much. In one of the header elements they had hardcoded the URL for a QA site they built for a large car dealer. Fun stuff.

Re: AI.gov

#180

Post by asynchronous »

phillipcarter wrote: post #131
cedws wrote: post #4

Our governments care dearly about "AI safety" (nobody actually knows what that means or is qualified to define it yet) but not a right to privacy.

If you read the fact sheet they released (linked to on the page) you can see there's some very specific things they're outlining with regards to safety: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... Your comment is a cynical one. The very people qualified to define something like AI safety for the US population is...the US Government. Which is what they're doing. If you don't like some of what they'…

I personally don’t enjoy the government enforcing monopolies and moats for the FAANGs of the world.
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