‘AI Talent Surge’ Underway in Federal Government
White House, Justice Department, other agencies target professionals and students in effort to attract AI talent to sign up for national causes and to foster ethical AI
By John P. Desmond, Editor, AI in Business
The US Justice Department has hired its first chief AI officer, indicative of an escalation in efforts by the federal government to bring in AI talent.
The Justice Department hired Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and lawyer on the faculty of Princeton University and a primary policy advisor to Attorney General Merrick Garland, to lead the department’s technology capacity-building efforts related to recruiting and on emerging technologies.
The creation of the position of chief AI officer at the Justice Department comes as advances in AI have raised a number of legal and safety questions as governments look to gain some control of the disruptive technology, according to an account in The Wall Street Journal. President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on AI last October, an order seen as a guide for making AI more accountable in the government and in business. (See Executive Order on AI Seen as Model for AI Accountability, AI in Business, December 8, 2023)
Mayer is currently an assistant professor in the computer science department at Princeton, and also in its School of Public and International Affairs. He has served in technology policy advising roles for the California Department of Justice and in the office of Vice President Kama Harris in 2017 and 2018 when she was serving as a US Senator.
According to Mayer’s website, he conducts research on “the intersection of technology and law, with emphasis on national security, criminal procedure, consumer privacy, network management and online speech.” He holds a PhD in computer science and a law degree from Stanford University. He started in the new role in January and committed to serving for at least 12 months before returning to Princeton.
In a release, Attorney General Garland stated, “Jonathan’s expertise will be invaluable in ensuring that the entire Justice Department—including our law enforcement components, litigating components, grant-making entities and US Attorneys’ offices—is prepared for both the challenges and opportunities that new technologies present.”
White House Has Issued “A Call to Service for AI Talent”
The White House in January issued “A Call to Service for AI Talent in the Federal Government,” to follow up on the President’s Order on AI with a plan to recruit the people necessary to carry out the agenda for AI safety and security, privacy protection, equity and civil rights, while working to harness AI for the public good.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is … developing standards for testing and red-teaming to establish benchmarks for power AI models,” stated Principal Deputy US Chief Technology Officer Deirdre K. Mulligan and US Digital Service Administrator Mina Hsiangj, authors of the call to service statement. “We are funding groundbreaking research to promote ethical and trustworthy AI through our National AI Research Institutes. And we just launched a pilot for the National AI Research, which provides data and compute infrastructure for researchers to enable AI research across a broad community.”
The authors added, “We are calling on AI and AI-enabling experts to join us to advance this research and ensure the next generation of AI models is safe, secure, and trustworthy.”
A visit to the AI Talent Surge website shows the government is looking for talent to: “leverage AI in government, build AI regulatory capacity and strengthen the AI R&D ecosystem.”
The “apply for an AI job in government” area is divided into sections for professionals and for students. Professionals are encouraged to look for AI-related jobs: on the USAJobs site that lists job openings in federal agencies; with the US Digital Services, a technology service housed within the Executive Office of the President, providing consulting services to federal agencies on information technology; or with the Presidential Innovation Fellows, which is hiring senior technical leaders in AI with backgrounds in “product, design, data science, engineering and digital transformation, to embed within federal agencies as yearlong senior advisors … to prototype and scale solutions using industry best practices;” or at the US Census Bureau, which is looking for senior-level technical leaders to join the Emerging Technology Fellowship for up to a four-year term to help deliver data-driven services; or with the US Digital Corps, which is hiring “early-career data scientists and AI professionals, as well as software engineers, designers, product managers and cybersecurity analysts” for a two-year fellowship that concludes in a permanent federal job.
Students can apply to: the Data Science Summer Institute, at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to study machine learning, statistics and high-performance computing; the SMART program within the Department of Defense, offering scholarships for students pursuing a degree in one of 24 STEM disciplines, several related to AI (SMART students receive full tuition, annual stipends and guaranteed employment within the DOD after graduation); and the Data Science and Informatics Scholar program within the National Library of Medicine, which is seeking interns to work on research projects in the biological sciences.
DHS “Hiring Sprint” Aims to Bring in 50 AI Experts This Year
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a “hiring sprint” to recruit 50 AI experts in 2024. The new DHS “AI Corps” is modeled after the US Digital Service to build teams to leverage AI technology across strategic areas. These include efforts to counter fentanyl, child sexual exploitation, immigration services, travel, critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, according to a release from DHS.
“Government needs the support and expertise of our country’s foremost AI experts to help ensure our continued ability to harness this technology responsibly, safeguard against its malicious use, and advance our critical homeland security mission,” stated Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “Our new AI Corps initiative will make it easier to bring these talented, experienced, creative men and women into public service quickly.”
Consistent with the thrust, the US Office of Personnel Management in late February sent guidance to federal agencies outlining pay and benefit flexibilities for AI positions that provide incentives to help attract and retain personnel, according to an account in Fedscoop.
Issued by OPM Director Kiran Ahuja, the memo summarizes the “discretionary authority” that agencies have for pay, incentive pay and flexibility programs for AI jobs. Among them: recruitment and retention incentives, student loan repayment, multiple mechanisms for allowing higher pay, alternative work schedules and remote work.
Also, relocation incentives can be offered for new and existing employees in difficult-to-fill positions of up to 25 percent of basic pay times the number of years in a service agreement, up to four years. Certain workers who are likely to leave the federal government can be offered up to 25 percent of base pay for a single employee or 10 percent for a group. To qualify, employees do not need to have a job offer from outside the federal government.
Read the source articles and information in The Wall Street Journal, in “A Call to Service for AI Talent in the Federal Government” from the White House, the AI Talent Surge website, a release from the Department of Homeland Security and in Fedscoop.