[HN Gopher] AI.gov
___________________________________________________________________
AI.gov
Author : KoftaBob
Score : 298 points
Date : 2023-10-30 09:21 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ai.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (ai.gov)
| FBISurveillance wrote:
| Reminds me of healthcare.gov.
|
| By the way, we've seen it years ago:
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27048048
|
| * https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/03/whit...
|
| Still coming soon? Kudos to OP for submitting this as a reminder.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Seems the website has been updated in the last hour or so,
| probably as a result of the executive order announced this
| morning:
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
| cedws wrote:
| 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.
| Beta-7 wrote:
| > nobody actually knows what that means
|
| I sure hope it doesn't mean the government will shape the
| future of AI development how they see fit.
| mattnewton wrote:
| No that seems to be exactly the plan. Or rather, how some
| lobbyists they are talking to see fit. https://www.washington
| post.com/technology/2023/10/30/biden-a...
| dylan604 wrote:
| this is the real thing. this looks like it's gov't
| legislation, but we all know that it is corporate lobbyists
| that actually provide that legislation.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >nobody actually knows what that means or is qualified to
| define it yet
|
| Now is the time to start talking about it and taking it
| seriously though. If we keep avoiding trying to define it then
| we'll never be qualified to do so.
| pesfandiar wrote:
| The United States has by far the largest consumer market in the
| world. A right to privacy hinders access to that market and
| slows it down.
| zzzzzzzza wrote:
| "Protecting Americans' Privacy"
|
| is the second top level bullet point out of 8 top level bullet
| points
| oshout wrote:
| I realize you're making a direct reference but scare-quotes
| seem more applicable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes "documents of the
| FVEY have shown that they are intentionally spying on one
| another's citizens and sharing the collected information with
| each other"
| simonw wrote:
| There's a section on data privacy here:
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/data-priva...
| phillipcarter wrote:
| 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're doing, there's many pathways to making
| sure your voice is heard, including voting for people who would
| explicitly support your policy preferences.
| asynchronous wrote:
| I personally don't enjoy the government enforcing monopolies
| and moats for the FAANGs of the world.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| What specifically in the order do you disagree with?
| cbozeman wrote:
| LOL, we all know _exactly_ what that means...
|
| > Doesn't threaten the profits of entrenched gigantic
| megacorps.
|
| > Doesn't threaten the status quo of the megawealthy.
|
| > Doesn't threaten the highly-entrenched people in the
| government.
|
| AI safety is about making AI "safe" for their pocketbooks.
| neotrope wrote:
| Can we get an AI Force as well? If AI is a threat, only option is
| escalation.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can we get an AI Force as well?_
|
| In case you actually didn't know [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ai.mil/
| filoleg wrote:
| 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 comment.
| RIMR wrote:
| Imagine reading the OP comment and not recognizing it as
| hyperbole.
| civilitty wrote:
| The recruitment posters write themselves:
| https://imgur.com/a/g5Eh2ka
| dmix wrote:
| Is this original (aka AI) content? I love it
| bogwog wrote:
| The first poster has a typo "ECALATION", but I think that's
| actually more appropriate since it makes it seem AI
| generated.
|
| Edit: wait are they actually AI generated?! That's pretty
| damn good if they are!
| queuebert wrote:
| I have a logo suggestion: https://imgur.com/a/fpchtGV
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| 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 house)
| mattnewton wrote:
| Can't they just use the contractor loophole?
| hiddencost wrote:
| Career bureaucrats have historically been more loyal to the
| government, IME, and have their incentives better aligned.
| acdha wrote:
| They can but that has several widespread problems: the
| biggest is that you need skilled people in the government who
| can review bids and oversee work - otherwise you get a $10M
| contact form because someone at BigCo1 wanted to play
| buzzword bingo and keep their buddies employed, and the
| "overseer" from BigCo2 wasn't going to saying the team, often
| former coworkers, wasn't performing well because that'd
| invite honest grading on other contracts where the relations
| are reversed.
|
| Beyond that, you get various efficiency issues: contractor
| turnover tends to be higher, which is terrible when
| institutional memory matters or when you're relying on their
| best people to keep a larger group productive, and there are
| often various contractual or policy issues making work less
| efficient. One challenge is that managing contracts is a lot
| of work, so there's a temptation to go with the big companies
| who offer many services but that often means that they're
| only good at one area and you get mediocre results in the
| other ones which were lumped into the same contract - often
| banking on the difficulty of taking corrective action meaning
| that people will accept low performance in non-core areas to
| avoid jeopardizing a core project by the same company. None
| of that's intractable but it adds up and fixing it is hard.
| wslack wrote:
| > the biggest is that you need skilled people in the
| government who can review bids and oversee work
|
| It's also very isolating to be the "one person" who knows
| the subject area. Having teams of folks is much more
| sustainable.
| godelski wrote:
| 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.
| j45 wrote:
| Some say wage suppression is one way the much better paid
| bureaucratic class can keep their well educated potential
| replacements where they are, far away.
| tomohelix wrote:
| 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...
| dheera wrote:
| Almost all those 300K+ industry jobs are willing to sponsor
| visas.
|
| 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.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| "a measly 180k" is a wild statement on an absolute scale,
| but i do see what you're saying relatively.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| 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.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| As in it's a joke if they accept it?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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://w
| ww.nytim...
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 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.
| antisthenes wrote:
| You won't be able to FIRE on $180k for 10 years (or
| less), not even close.
|
| The thing about FIRE is you actually need way more money
| than regular retirement, because you have to plan for a
| 40+year retirement instead of a 15-20 year one. On top of
| that you need a higher margin to account for uncertainty.
| philsnow wrote:
| HDThoreaun is saying that it's possible to work in the
| private sector for a decade and save/invest enough to
| FIRE, _especially_ if in your "retirement" you're also
| pulling in $180k/y and getting government benefits.
|
| There's "barista FIRE" (save enough and then go work as a
| barista, typically at starbucks because they had
| unusually good benefits, but I don't know if all that has
| changed after the unionization), but honestly working for
| the government seems like it could be even lower-stress
| than being a barista.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| I don't think post docs get 300k-400k outside of major tech
| hubs. 180k is on the higher end of the software pay scale
| across most the USA.
| tomrod wrote:
| Which generally aren't hired by the government
| (unfortunately).
|
| Wage rates should be higher.
| ryanklee wrote:
| $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.
| enumjorge wrote:
| "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 with people who are
| not top talent or those who are already so wealthy from other
| jobs that they're willing to work for much less.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Not to mention, that 180K is either barely more (on the
| lower end) or less than a senior web developer makes at a
| good sized company. Thats just how out of sync government
| salaries are
|
| 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
| chriskanan wrote:
| Having previously been an AI scientist hiring manager, that's
| around the starting salary for an AI PhD fresh graduate in
| the USA, which does not include equity.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Where exactly are you seeing that $180K remote job? When I
| specify 'remote' on that site only 4 jobs come up. One of
| them is data scientist, another is IT Specialist and the
| other two seem administrative. The IT Specialist job is
| listed at $99K while the other three are around $70K/year.
| dbish wrote:
| That's not going to get good people unless they're doing it
| to help.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| With no intention to start a flame war: I don't see a
| future where affording a government the capability of SOTA
| AI is helping.
| dbish wrote:
| Fair point, just saying they definitely won't get people
| who can help with or understand SOTA at these prices
| unless they're basically volunteering.
| aduffy wrote:
| 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 she proposes effectively would be an expansion of
| the US Digital Service (which the author spearheaded) into
| something that approximates the British civil service, which is
| actually highly functional and effective.
|
| If you actually care about this problem and have a spare
| Audible credit it's worth a listen.
|
| [1]
| https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250266774/recodingamerica
| j45 wrote:
| Bureaucrats are so risk averse to such an extent that the
| culture can have an allergy to trying to do things different
| or better too quickly (including innovation).
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Did you just strip the context and rephrase exactly what
| the parent comment says?
| j45 wrote:
| Not at all.
|
| Sincerely asking, does your question intend to pre-
| suppose that everyone must have and express a unique
| perspective and no one can independently have anything in
| common? Or some other faux pas such a comment would run
| a-foul of?
|
| When I saw original post, I had this comment. There was
| kinship with the parent post. Sometimes echoing your
| support with another comment is a valid comment too.
|
| If you may want more novelty and context and details:
|
| My professional experience includes working across
| multiple industries of bureaucrats, and that was my
| visceral reaction to the piece. Change usually means
| studying change, analysis, design and ultimately decision
| fatigue by committee.
|
| There's many hard working and great bureaucrats. My
| statement tends to apply to the leadership and management
| layers. In terms of keepign things the same or very slow
| and tiny changes incrementaly, there's a lot of neat
| reading around institutionalization as it relates to not
| only government but bureaucracy here.
|
| An exciting part is how the pandemic challenged and made
| it OK for bureaucracies to try things and to roll out
| programs that weren't fully thought out or known and
| update them regularly. In environments many people could
| not handle navigating.
|
| Most of all I'm flattered by the downvotes.. happy to
| take those for the parent too. Perhaps I phrased it in a
| way that might have triggered some bureaucrats since they
| exist in enterprise, government, education, healthcare
| and more.
|
| Or maybe it bothered the dopamine seekers in only novel
| and unique comments have worth.
| jmac01 wrote:
| 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.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| 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.
| j45 wrote:
| Sometimes talking and consulting with people is seen as
| the work output too.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| 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.
| Spoom wrote:
| Going through the procurement process itself results in
| massive delays (have _you_ tried bidding on a federal
| government contract?), a race to the bottom (since the
| government more or less has to accept the lowest bid),
| and massive overspecification by policy writers (mostly
| to try to salvage some quality from these RFPs).
|
| Echoing that _Recoding America_ is a great book to read
| even if you have nothing to do with the federal
| government. You might see some similarities in how large
| companies operate.
| acdha wrote:
| That approach works for buying a WordPress deployment or
| a Gmail license. It doesn't for anything where you need
| customization, serving needs or audiences which the
| private sector doesn't prioritize (the VA can't blow off
| accessibility or tell veterans that they need a fiber
| connected-M2 to have decent performance), or provide
| income to a startup which needs to explore a somewhat
| novel problem.
|
| The real problem here is one you see in many
| organizations: misaligned incentives. Government has some
| unique challenges but most of what you see are common in
| the private sector, too: some people talk like the public
| sector is consistently super high quality on lean budgets
| but for every Chrome there are a dozen terrible
| enterprise apps which also fully count as private sector
| products. The pathologies are mostly the same: internal
| politics, building things you won't personally use, not
| wanting to revisit past decisions, or otherwise having
| your paycheck come from things other than what's best for
| your users.
|
| Startups aren't magic pixie dust for avoiding those
| problems: most fail, and the winners often hit the same
| problems from a different direction - making users happy
| until Google buys them and cancels the good parts, having
| to start aggressively monetizing at the expense of the
| user experience, etc.
| wslack wrote:
| > 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.
|
| These exist; they are called "firm fixed price"
| contracts. You still have to write the contract correctly
| to be outcomes focused, and that can be hard when you
| don't know until building/testing if you are building the
| right thing.[1]
|
| 1: https://derisking-guide.18f.gov/federal-field-
| guide/deciding...
| j45 wrote:
| I'm not sure if entirely or "too" conservative or
| progressive organizations or governments succeed.
|
| Bureaucracies who can't change when needed, fail if they
| are stuck on constantly "conserving" at all costs, or
| "changing" at all costs.
|
| There is some neat research out there that I will try to
| dig up on how corporate organizations actually benefit from
| having a balance between the "go" and the "whoa" in an
| organization, whether it is conservative or progressive
| views on something. This is not to say that those primarily
| obsessed with converving (keeping the world how it is, for
| the benefit of who is already benefitting only) may not be
| progressive and expand, nor does it mean that progressives
| aren't capable of restraint.
|
| Making it about sides, is really, really, oversimplifying
| it though. It's one of the thing I think that is really
| polarizing when people who focus on differences more find
| more of them, but if you ask them, they ultimately have a
| different way of having the same thing in common. Maybe
| this is unique to the US, but it has always struck with me
| how people align completely binary around right or left
| when so many folks if they took the time to learn where
| they stand would probably end up closer to the centre on
| one side.
|
| Fanaticsm at the extremes of any interpreted ideology is a
| bigger issue. Those folks can neither change their mind,
| nor change the topic, nor openly entertain a viewpoint that
| isn't theirs, but try to be open minded. It's my hope that
| societal progress can make inroads here because poeple do
| have more in common than they think.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Sounds like the TLDR is privatize the profits?
| varelse wrote:
| Which is pretty much what the proposed regulations on AI
| will do as well whist destroying small company innovation
| and treating consumer AI like software and media piracy.
|
| I guess the president felt bad about banning GPU sales to
| China so he decided to gimp America too.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| > she proposes effectively would be an expansion of the US
| Digital Service (which the author spearheaded) into something
| that approximates the British civil service
|
| This sounds like a very brave proposal.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| https://18f.gsa.gov/
|
| Here's essentially, what exists today. Pretty impressive
| people.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > 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/
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| 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.
| nightpool wrote:
| 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)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| That's a good question, because I'm speaking now as a
| regular citizen, civilian, and discounting any
| "professional" contact I have with government. A lot of
| it is feel, and also by comparison to how _bad_ it once
| was, and the kind of thing I've experienced in mainland
| Europe.
|
| In Britain the cs are basically providing long-term
| continuity regardless of how chaotic and volatile party
| politics becomes. What we see is that most of the
| machinery of state keeps working, despite the circus in
| the Commons. Despite Covid. Despite Brexit. So, without
| subscribing to an anarchic take, we somehow concede that
| somebody, somewhere, must be doing some work :)
|
| Most people's contact is through online, if you can fire
| up even the most basic browser almost every interaction
| is clear, fast and smooth.
|
| When you start dealing at a higher level (business and
| contracting) then you see behind the Wizard of Oz's
| curtain a bit. Things go more smoothly if you have the
| right documents and history. Isn't that the same in every
| country though?
|
| So, it serves regular citizens very well, but less
| considerately as your needs are more complex. Effective
| maybe, but I didn't say "fair" :) Certainly there must be
| many people find it harder, and I'm probably showing my
| privilege.
| nmca wrote:
| GDS - government digital services - always seems
| shockingly sane, a d it shows in lots of online forms
| etc.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Yet somehow the same institutions produced gov.uk, which
| is superb compared to just about every other country's
| counterpart. I've no idea how you did it, just wanted my
| appreciation on the record :)
| claytongulick wrote:
| 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.
| hipadev23 wrote:
| If you're shocked that a government job asked you to "keep
| in a cup" you need to do some better research in the
| future. Talk about being totally unfuckingprepared.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Pee in a cup - drug test.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| 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 shouldn 't be a reason to forgo employment of a
| candidate they otherwise liked, but at the same time, it
| wasn't an issue of like, you wouldn't get hired because of
| your race or gender, it was an issue of like, you'd have to
| abstain drugs for a while. And then, once you're part of
| that organization, you can help push for the exact changes
| you want to see in it.
|
| It's the same reason I get frustrated with my generation
| not wanting to run for office: we spend all our time
| complaining about how awful the government is, but precious
| few are putting themselves out there as the instruments of
| that change. I don't know if it'll work out or not but I
| know damn well it won't if we refuse to even try.
| _gmax0 wrote:
| +1 to this sentiment.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Almost all bad business practices were ended by labor
| refusing to comply with them, not complying to get the
| job and then somehow changing it within. I think that on
| top of not taking a massive pay cut, not submitting to a
| test that can flag you as an opiate addict to the
| government for life if you ate a poppyseed bagel in the
| morning is reasonable.
| claytongulick wrote:
| 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.
| freedomben wrote:
| You are completely right. Once inside, your power to
| affect change is nearly zero unless you are a very high
| ranking person, and even then it's pretty near
| impossible.
|
| The change will come when enough people say "we can't
| hire the best people!" Until then, the only argument is
| "it's an invasion of privacy and outdated" but if it's
| not broken (i.e. not causing any problems) they won't fix
| it. All the candidates power is at negotiation of the
| offer time. Once you accept, it's kind of over.
| wslack wrote:
| Current USDSer here posting personally. I hear this and you
| aren't alone. It's not a decision specifically about USDS,
| more about the entire White House staff and federal law.
| rs999gti wrote:
| > Plus, I find the whole "pee in a cup" thing demeaning,
| intrusive and offensive.
|
| Marijuana is still US federally illegal.
| dnate wrote:
| It is as well in most of europe. And its also illegal to
| make your employees take a drug test in most of europe
| unless you work for the police or with heavy machinery
| sngz wrote:
| I actually considered applying for the US Digital Services, I
| was okay with the salary decrease as long as I could continue
| to work fully remote, but they require you to work in DC.
| Telling ppl to take a huge pay cut AND to have to show up to
| the office is a huge ask.
| philsnow wrote:
| from https://www.usds.gov/faq :
|
| > As of April 2023, we began formally hiring remote as well
| as DC (local) based employees who report in-person to our
| D.C. office or the agency they are partnering with.
|
| I'm also fine with the salary decrease but at least with
| USDS they have you work a "tour" (like a tour of duty, I
| guess) which lasts between 3 months and 4 years. First,
| that's a little ambiguous; who decides the duration of the
| tour? It also feels like it would be off-putting to get to
| the end of your fourth year and it's your best-performing
| year so far, but you're just Logan's Run'ed out of there.
| Even more so because neither Congress nor the Supreme
| Court, nor the overwhelming majority of state Congresses,
| have term limits.
|
| from https://www.usds.gov/how-we-work ,
|
| > With tours of service lasting no more than four years,
| the U.S. Digital Service brings fresh perspectives on
| technology and delivery to the government.
|
| Feels like " 'fresh perspectives' for thee but not for me".
| wslack wrote:
| Representatives have elections to determine how long they
| can serve; career civil servants have strong protections
| against firing but the downside is a challenging hiring
| process that can be very slow.
|
| USDS's willingness to use term hires makes hiring folks
| in easier, in addition to ensuring that the office
| doesn't become stagnant.
| mmedellin wrote:
| This is most acutely felt in acquisitions where those
| responsible for deciding what to build and buy have very
| limited understanding of software development. The failed
| rollout of healthcare.gov is the billboard for this problem.
|
| 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.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| second hand knowledge in California is - the State is large
| and wealthy enough to have some echoes of the actual Federal
| govt.. and repeated words from direct software project
| participants was .. that mid-level bureaucrats from the
| "controlling" contract originator, would spuriously and
| without warning change the requirements.. sometimes so much
| so that it would invalidate large'ish portions of completed
| work.. and this happened all the way into the final month of
| a supposedly serious deadline, with failure to perform
| clauses and all that, at stake.
|
| A first-hand voice from California State software projects
| said - that the required prime contractor had 10+ person
| teams and $1m+ budget, and failed to build useful results.
| The final result from the project(s) more than once, was "oh
| oops, doesn't fit with -other framework- cannot be deployed".
| In other words, literally making things that are abandoned on
| Day 1 of deployment, for large money, with plenty of apparent
| pressure on "workers" to perform. etc..
| wslack wrote:
| > I do think an overhaul of the civilian service is worth
| exploring.
|
| There are decades of reports and proposals about this.
| Unfortunately, we keep learning the same lessons over and
| over.
| altdataseller wrote:
| A lot of those jobs aren't really AI/ML related too just
| reading the descriptions. They seem like generic software/IT
| positions
| vwcx wrote:
| This is how government hiring works. The job buckets are
| incredibly unspecific.
|
| Related: Open jobs at the CIA with the title "analyst".
| dmead wrote:
| The US digital service tries to do this, but it just ends up
| maxing out the government payscale very quickly.
| jlpom wrote:
| Same story in France and I suspect other countries
| b8 wrote:
| Yep, the US government gives contracts for a lot of stuff like
| cybersecurity etc. because the GS pay scale can't compete with
| the private industry standard.
| curiousllama wrote:
| > The US really needs a special schedule for software
| developers
|
| There's actually precedent for this - SEC lawyers are on the SK
| pay scale, not GS.
|
| It's exactly the same problem: the alternatives in finance were
| too lucrative to retain competent enough attorneys to regulate
| wall street.
|
| Congress should create a separate tech pay scale, given the
| alternatives are too lucrative to retain competent enough
| engineers.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > 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.
| boringg wrote:
| Working for the government should be in the same ballpark but
| typically work at the government pays a less as there is to be
| the perceived benefit of social good imbedded in your salary as
| well as there are power considerations (in this case impacting
| AI policy). That and your job is generally considered to be
| safer than working in private interest. The incentives aren't
| the same.
|
| For example judges take on their roll even though they would be
| paid significantly more in the private sector as lawyers.
| rlayton2 wrote:
| I'm not sure about the USA, but government jobs in Australia
| also are very stable with strong contracts and benefits (in
| general, every department is different).
| spandextwins wrote:
| It's not the government's job to do that.
| vinhboy wrote:
| As someone who used to work in government contracting, this
| comment is so freaking true.
|
| The whole thing about contractors is so spot on. The only
| slight difference I would add is that the contractors will NOT
| hire the best talent, they will hire whoever they can to fill
| the position, for the cheapest price, so they can claim to have
| fulfilled their RFP.
|
| It's a dead end.
| donmcronald wrote:
| I haven't done much, but anything I ever deal with that
| involves the government and contractors is the same. The
| contractor has an astronomical margin and, in addition to not
| hiring the best talent, they don't care about their employees
| and have a high churn rate.
|
| These are also the same ones that are super eager to have AI
| replace their (unappreciated) employees. They don't care
| about quality _at all_ and as long as they fulfill the
| contract with something barely working that 's all that
| matters to them.
|
| I predict things are going to worse and worse when systems
| don't work. Having failures in critical institutions that are
| life altering for the people that are unlucky enough to be
| the outliers is going to become the norm IMO.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| Not to mention that you will have your livelihood at risk
| because the Congress and President can't agree on a budget.
| I've considered working for the government. But I'm not willing
| to put my paycheck in the hands of incompetent elected
| representatives.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| I wonder if there's some way for the government to partner with
| one of the major tech co's (e.g. microsoft/google/apple)
| similar to how the military seems to partner with private co's
| (e.g. lockheed martin).
| latchkey wrote:
| Discussions on similar submissions related to this website:
|
| _Agency inventories of AI use cases_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32712177 (September 4, 2022
| -- 2 points, 0 comments)
|
| _National Artificial Intelligence Initiative_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27048048 (May 5, 2021 -- 202
| points, 102 comments)
| cj wrote:
| This CNBC article has a good description of what's in the
| executive order that was issued.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/biden-unveils-us-governments...
| RIMR wrote:
| What does this have to do with the USAjobs portal that this
| thread is about?
| cj wrote:
| Perhaps it's not related at all. I assumed (incorrectly) that
| ai.gov is a new site connected to the exec order.
| clbrmbr wrote:
| 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.
| api wrote:
| I predict that AI is going to increase demand for workers in
| knowledge work, though it will also change the nature of some
| of that work.
|
| When an efficiency increasing technology comes along, things
| tend to grow and not shrink. Cars massively increased the
| number of people employed in transportation related and
| adjacent fields, to give just one example.
|
| Social is another beast entirely. There's already a huge
| backlash there, and justifiably so.
| gumballindie wrote:
| There will also be an increase in companies and products that
| safeguard your data and intellectual property against theft.
| WD40forRust wrote:
| 1) No cloud, everything local or site-to-site. If cloud, then
| encrypted entirely.
|
| 2) Not only FOSS operating system, but FOSS firmware and
| microcode, and the hardware completely documented and
| published. Maybe a 100% sales tax on retail price of, and 25
| year software service assurances on, products containing ANY
| kind of Universal Machine which fail to meet this? (Elect me
| Benevolent Dictator For Life and I will make this happen!)
|
| 3) Cryptography and cybersecurity basics need to be taught in
| public schools, just like resume writing.
| swalsh wrote:
| I believe we're witnessing a political realignment, and anti-
| technology sentiments play a significant role in the evolving
| left/right ideologies. There's something I term the "new
| right," which is distinctly different from the "alt-right." The
| new right leans more libertarian and has a younger demographic.
|
| This group values individual liberty in financial matters
| (e.g., cryptocurrency), individual liberty in computing (e.g.,
| AI), and individual liberty in manufacturing and firearms
| (e.g., 3D printers and semi-automatic guns). Interestingly,
| they also advocate for transparency regarding extraterrestrial
| life. It's an unusual stance, but it's part of their ideology.
| Of course many prominant democrats have led the charge on this,
| so it's probably not as cut and dry like the others. During the
| COVID-19 pandemic, they were skeptical of mainstream
| narratives, but their views were diverse; they weren't strictly
| anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine, anti-mask, or pro-mask. They
| harbored various opinions, but universally believed that the
| experts' confidence was misplaced.
|
| In contrast, the opposing side seems to advocate for stringent
| regulations on AI, cryptocurrency, and firearms. They seldom
| discuss extraterrestrials, primarily because they view
| themselves as experts, and in their eyes, the existence of
| aliens is implausible.
|
| The "new moderate" recognizes the potential of AI to cause
| widespread unemployment but also understands its immense value.
| They believe that a balance must be struck. The new moderate
| acknowledges the benefits of cryptocurrency, especially in
| regions lacking a stable banking system, and the potential of
| smart contracts. However, they also recognize its misuse by
| terrorists and its frequent use in schemes that prey on
| uninformed investors. They believe that compromise is
| essential, and some form of regulation is inevitable.
| Racing0461 wrote:
| They couldn't resist - https://ai.gov/immigrate/
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Resist what? What exactly is unusual about this?
| JustifyContent wrote:
| Likely a right-winger who thinks immigration - even
| immigration of people who are talented in developing the most
| important technology of our time - is really bad. So they
| "couldn't resist" offering more immigration opportunities to
| people.
| RIMR wrote:
| Look at his post history. He recently complained that LLMs
| are too "woke".
|
| So yeah, 100% a racist right winger who didn't have
| anything of value to say, and decided to just throw shade
| at immigrants when he saw the opportunity.
|
| Good news is that these guys will open their mouths at work
| and get themselves canned, so we usually only have to worry
| about them online.
| WD40forRust wrote:
| >racist right winger
|
| Then there is the suicidally-altruistic left winger.
| RIMR wrote:
| "Being pro-immigration is suicidal"
|
| A perfectly non-racist statement in a world where context
| isn't important. A very racist statement in a world where
| everyone knows that you're saying that foreigners are
| dangerous.
| WD40forRust wrote:
| Driving down native wages of course! What did you think? xD
| RIMR wrote:
| I know everyone has already figured out what you're trying to
| say, but for clarity, do you mind elaborating on what you meant
| here?
| Racing0461 wrote:
| 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.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Obama wasn't exactly known for his progressive immigration
| policy.
| 93po wrote:
| Kids in cages was definitely happening under Obama and
| also now with Biden
| RIMR wrote:
| >My view are pretty much '04 Obama
|
| Yeah, that's right wing...
|
| Also, nothing on that page was factually incorrect, so we
| come back around to the original point: Immigrants were
| brought up, you hate foreigners, and you got mad that they
| were included at all.
| JaDogg wrote:
| more people should go to america just to annoy this person :p
| tsunamifury wrote:
| 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.
| thatguysaguy wrote:
| 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.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| European technologists and engineers are hamstrung by EU
| regulations.
| EricE wrote:
| Good government are like good spices - a little bit can
| make a dish amazing, but too much utterly ruins it.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Is it really regulation? Or is it financing, laws about
| firing, cultural approaches to work, or a myriad of other
| differences?
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| ...and I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for
| those darn regulators!
|
| The US used to have consumer focused regulators too, but
| they have been undermined for long enough to neutralize the
| threat to monopolistic megacorps.
| 72mena wrote:
| > "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
| Intelligence:
|
| Chapter 10. Page 178:
|
| "Nations that can successfully attract and retain highly
| skilled individuals gain strategic and economic advantages over
| competitors." [...] "Unfortunately, international students in
| the United States are increasingly choosing to study in other
| countries or return home. One reason is the growing backlog of
| green card petitions. Indian immigrants face a particularly
| long wait. Many will spend decades on constrictive work visas
| waiting to receive their green cards, hindering both the
| technology sector's ability to recruit talent and Indian
| immigrants' quality of life."
|
| The report recommends to focus on building better Immigration
| Policies. Maybe this .gov initiative listened to the advice
| from the report.
|
| [1]: https://www.nscai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Full-
| Report...
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Yea I think it's more that Schmidt believes that AI is the
| force-multiplier of any existing system of power in the world
| today, and whatever it takes the US needs to continue to fuel
| it.
|
| But he also seems to understand the labor/intelligence
| relationship to get there better than anyone else. I really
| missed him when he left Google, Sundar is a pail shadow.
| azinman2 wrote:
| 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.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| When you are a billionaire the greatest thing you can
| afford is self-contradictory behavior.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Probably not.
|
| Simply put, there's no first-world country in the world where
| top talent can earn even close to a US salary, which largely
| due to the fact that US is relatively permissive towards large
| income disparities.
|
| Other countries "fixing" that would be politically infeasible.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Yet at the same time Liberal thought is the reason we have
| made such an incredible break thought in AI technology with
| the LLM. Quite literally the hippy movement lead to the open
| source movement lead to the internet lead to the LLM. So we
| have this seeming conundrum between little l and big L
| liberalism...
|
| ... im struggling with the realization that Liberalism the
| big idea is probably an afforded luxury ideal of the rich, as
| well as a runaway self-re-enforcing flywheel of
| wealth/advancement. I benefit from it, but fewer and fewer
| are going forward, while the US is simultaneously winning
| harder and harder. This is a nightmarish equation!
| mazlix wrote:
| > Simply put, there's no first-world country in the world
| where top talent can earn even close to a US salary, which
| largely due to the fact that US is relatively permissive
| towards large income disparities.
|
| Why do you think it's A -> B and not B -> A? What factors of
| the US being permissive towards large income disparities do
| other nations lack that prevent them from paying equivalent
| salaries.
|
| One specific thing I've heard which makes sense to me toward
| explaining the salary gap is the US tends to have at-will
| employment while other nations make it more difficult to fire
| people. I wouldn't personally classify as promoting income
| disparity though.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| It has an undeniable ability to draw the best talent away
| from Europe and Asia, who want to earn more. I have worked
| with armies of these people -- they left their home
| countries for the opportunity for the big check. And those
| checks are way past the disparity you describe from at will
| employment, this is 10x more not 1.4x more.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| This is why open borders and immigration is a right wing
| capitalist value and not a left wing one. Many left wing
| activists have fallen into this trap of towing the line
| of giant US corporations that strip the world of their
| human resource.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > I wouldn't personally classify [at-will] as promoting
| income disparity though.
|
| Of course it is.
|
| Low-performers are fired from high-paid positions that
| high-performers keep. This translates performance
| disparities to income disparities.
|
| > What factors of the US being permissive towards large
| income disparities do other nations lack that prevent them
| from paying equivalent salaries.
|
| 1. At-will employment
|
| 2. Employer-provided benefits
|
| 3. Smaller safety net
|
| 4. Lower taxes
|
| 5. Fewer business regulations
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| > largely due to the fact that US is relatively permissive
| towards large income disparities.
|
| Actually, its due to a shortage of highly skilled
| labor/specialists relative to demand. Europe benefits from
| more advanced math and programming talent as a result of
| Eastern European and Russian/Ukraine labor availability. US
| immigration policy puts America at a disadvantage in this
| regard - something they are weakly trying to address here.
|
| Sorry if that goes against your income inequality agenda.
| paulddraper wrote:
| If you're crossing borders/languages, you're crossing
| borders/languages.
|
| Not sure why the barrier to using Eastern European talent
| would be appreciable different. (Time zones?)
|
| > income inequality agenda
|
| No agenda, just analysis.
|
| If you increase income inequality, the top earners can earn
| more.
| dbish wrote:
| Don't you think if this were true there would be more
| breakout technical (and by extension startup) successes in
| Europe which doesn't seem to be the case.
| layer8 wrote:
| At the same time, moving to the US is unattractive for a
| significant portion of the talent (not the least due to the
| US' socio-cultural-political climate), and working remotely
| for a US company comes with its own difficulties.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| There is unbridled immigration to the US. I truly can't
| think of a cohort for which the US is unattractive.
| antisthenes wrote:
| There are definitely small ideological, well-off pockets
| of Europeans, who enjoy living in high safety net
| countries and don't really want to trade one developed
| country for another.
|
| They don't necessarily have the skills to draw high US
| tech salaries either.
|
| But for the vast majority, like you said, the US is
| extremely attractive.
| jltsiren wrote:
| North/West European middle class, for example.
|
| I'm from Finland myself, I've been living in the US for
| some years, and I have no concrete plans to return. I've
| known many Finns who have tried the same, but most of
| them have returned to Finland, or at least to Europe.
| Most of them are highly educated professionals. It turns
| out the difference in standard of living is not that
| large. For most people, living closer to family and
| friends is more important. If they find a decent
| opportunity closer to home, they usually take it.
|
| You can see the same effect with Finnish nurses. They
| could improve their standard of living significantly by
| moving to Norway. Probably more than software engineers
| moving to the US. It would be easy, because Norway is
| close, the culture is pretty similar, and Finnish
| citizens have a subjective right to live and work there.
| But few people actually do that.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Fair enough. I'd hate move an hour away, let alone to
| another country.
|
| But for anyone that is able/willing to move....
| userabchn wrote:
| I suggest that a substantial portion of that "socio-
| cultural-political climate" is due to foreign influence
| operations trying to amplify division for this purpose.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Haha this is such a globally out of touch statement. Yes a
| few European nations enjoy a much better quality of life
| while looking down their noses at the rest of us, blocking
| immigration, and generally being xenophobic.
|
| And it's not like the climate in Europe isn't verging on
| ethno fascism in several major state...
| seydor wrote:
| why would they? for most people in the western world it seems
| location doesn't matter anymore.
| userabchn wrote:
| 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.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| 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.
| WD40forRust wrote:
| 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)...
| ak_111 wrote:
| 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.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Even if it wasn't already used, putting putting official
| government stuff somewhere that's under the control of a
| different government is maybe not the best of plans.
|
| I'm even mildly annoyed that the website for the city I live in
| is under .org rather than under .${STATE_CODE}.us where it
| should be.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| 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
| ak_111 wrote:
| There is surprisingly still a lot of short-ish .ai urls
| available by the way, unlike io, the transition from io is
| still not complete.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| 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?
| elbasti wrote:
| Do you have a source for AWS employing 15K H1B holders? That's
| an insane number!
| spullara wrote:
| Close enough:
|
| https://h1bgrader.com
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2023-H1B-Visa-
| Sponsor.asp...
|
| No idea how reliable that site is, but it says Amazon.com
| sponsored 16,299, Amazon Web Services sponsored 5,056, and
| Amazon Development Center sponsored 2,119. So 23,474 in
| total.
|
| Edit: I see a note that this is APPLICATIONS, not grants.
| Nevermind, that's probably not accurate.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Those LCA applications aren't 1-1 with H1B quota numbers.
| Eg after 3 years when renewing a H1B the employer needs to
| file an LCA but that won't count against the cap. Similar
| for H1B transfers and renewals past 6 years.
|
| Overall the claim that Amazon takes 25 percent of H1Bs is
| extremely incorrect.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| What percent do they take?
| returningfory2 wrote:
| I believe there is no publicly available data that allows
| one to calculate the exact percent of new H-1B numbers
| used by a specific company.
|
| But if I go into USCIS's H-1 data hub, I can find some
| information. For FY-2022 Amazon had 12.5k petitions
| approved. But drilling into the data we see that less
| than 4k of those were for _new_ petitions - the others
| were extensions of existing petitions. 4k out of the H-1B
| quota is less than 5% (there are 85k new H-1B visas per
| year). But even that is an overestimate because a new
| employee transferring to Amazon will require a new
| petition but won't count against the quota.
|
| Overall, the best guess would be that Amazon use low
| single digits percent.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > Or is it just a meaningless website?
|
| It is a meaningless website. Everybody and their dog knows that
| in the present political climate it's practically impossible to
| change the immigration law. It's only a remote theoretical
| possibility that the US could fix their immigration system.
| jayp1418 wrote:
| https://github.com/jaypatelani/Project7AI
| exabrial wrote:
| How do I not pay for this with my tax dollars?
| nerdponx wrote:
| If you disagree with something the President or one of his
| subordinate agencies does, write your representatives in
| Congress and ask them to pass legislation. The President can't
| do anything that Congress tells him not to do.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Good news - you're not, because your tax dollars doesn't pay
| for much of anything. The US Government has monetary
| sovereignty and "pays for things" that way.
| exabrial wrote:
| Then for Christmas, all I want is my gross pay.
| BD103 wrote:
| 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 `<picture />` tag to support multiple
| sources for images
|
| - script.js on the website has ANSI art of the US flag
| (https://ai.gov/wp-content/themes/static/ai46/assets/js/scrip...)
| rob wrote:
| You answered your question with your third point's URL ('/wp-
| content/themes/[...]') - they're using WordPress. :)
| dmix wrote:
| Wordpress isn't really a web framework, it's a CMS with
| custom built themes which may include various frameworks.
| aaviator42 wrote:
| CMS: WordPress
|
| UI: USWDS: https://designsystem.digital.gov/
|
| Source: Wappalyzer
| ajcp wrote:
| 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.
| cbozeman wrote:
| America is so patriotic, we put our flag into a script.
|
| To quote Jeremy Irons playing Simon Gruber from Die Hard With A
| Vengeance, "HAH! God, I love this country!"
| jjcm wrote:
| 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 for these roles across the giants:
|
| Microsoft (level 66): $390,707
|
| Amazon (L7): $547,490
|
| Facebook (E6): $610,713
|
| Apple (ICT5): $497,780
|
| Google (L6): $506,141
|
| US Gov: $155,700 to start, with a max of $183,500 after 18 years
| (step increases are limited on a time basis)
|
| The US government is trying to leverage AI by paying 30.4% the
| wage of the leaders in private industry. I just don't see how
| they're going to be effective in doing this.
| nojito wrote:
| >I just don't see how they're going to be effective in doing
| this.
|
| Why not?
|
| That fellowship is extraordinarily competitive and is filled
| with former FAANG folks.
| 93po wrote:
| 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.
| wslack wrote:
| The pay cap is set in law, but you need people sufficiently
| invested in the mission to forgo a higher possible salary,
| which isn't possible for everyone (especially folks who might
| have to support their parents).
| ajcp wrote:
| 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.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| How come? I would value a Stanford degree and working at
| Google on a resume. I wouldn't know what to think about The
| White House or Air Force (like many posting on their site)
| on a resume.
| ajcp wrote:
| It's specifically the Presidential or White House [0]
| fellowships that are prestigious, although if you have
| any job in the White House that's just as well.
|
| What value an employer would derive from seeing that on
| someone's resume is probably the same as with Google or
| Stanford: it shows they got in, with the known/assumed
| quality of the institution vouching for their capability.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Fellows
| peyton wrote:
| 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.
| barelyauser wrote:
| How old are you? Major consensus among youngsters is that
| there is no such thing as "serving your country".
| davisr wrote:
| 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.
| usaar333 wrote:
| > After $100k, what difference does it make for one's
| happiness?
|
| Probably a lot. Can't raise a family in the Silicon Valley on
| that which makes people unhappy.
|
| This is far more of a cut than say at CZI.
| mortallywounded wrote:
| That's something someone would say that has never made 500k
| before :)
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, you don't have to spend it. Save it and retire early.
| Donate it all to a charity you believe in. Send your kids
| to the best school. Buy a nice home. Travel the world. The
| high salary only allows more options, it doesn't close any
| doors.
|
| (Just be careful about "getting used to it" and ending up
| having to change your lifestyle if market conditions
| change.)
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Depends on where they're living, I guess. But in DC,
| additional income above $100k would make a huge difference in
| quality of life.
| antisthenes wrote:
| A lot, actually. In a country like USA, you can get slapped
| with $100k worth of medical bills, and keep fighting them for
| years.
|
| If you said $100k and a safety net (that actually works), I
| would agree with you.
| pjlegato wrote:
| 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...
| jjcm wrote:
| > After 100k, what difference does it make for one's
| happiness?
|
| Fairly significant depending on the location. Keep in mind
| that for Washington DC, the average cost of living required
| income is 91,388 for a family of four[0], or 76,894 after
| taxes.
|
| This role pays $105k after taxes. One way to think about this
| is this means you have $2.3k per month in discretionary
| funds, versus 16.5k per month of discretionary funds for a
| big 5 job.
|
| If you're considering retirement, you'll achieve your savings
| goals 7 times faster with big tech. That's a big difference
| in happiness.
|
| If you're considering education for your children, you can
| afford private school or an ivy league education with big
| tech. With the government role you can't.
|
| Certainly there are a select few who will look at this and be
| motivated to serve their country, but more and more what
| we're seeing is that patriotism is at a record low[1]. If
| we're looking to attract the best of the best, we're culling
| the selection pool greatly by underpaying significantly.
| Relying on patriotism and asceticism is a hard thing to bet
| on.
|
| [0] https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/11001 [1]
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/394202/record-low-extremely-
| pro...
| nmca wrote:
| if the position was high-status enough they might be able to
| hire someone post-economic
| adeelk93 wrote:
| Two things:
|
| - your 18 year figure is inaccurate, I know people who have
| made it to the top of the pay scale in half that time
|
| - GS-15 step 10 is not the cap for a role like this one. this
| is scientific/technical expertise, which is 20% higher
| ($220,200). Not to mention awards.
|
| https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-s...
| jjcm wrote:
| The Executive Schedule is available for 18F as well as other
| agencies, but my understanding is that it is not true for
| this. Screenshot from the job page itself showing that this
| is a GS job capped at the GS-15 Step 10: https://image.non.io
| /6dbd428b-a356-4ec9-85a8-f1e84b4f3880.we...
| Rafuino wrote:
| US gov hiring is absolutely broken. I applied for a role I'm
| absolutely qualified for (even referred to apply for it by
| someone on the team based on my resume and experience) and was
| rejected out of hand (twice, after an appeal too) without
| consideration. I'm actually willing to take a pay cut to serve
| my country, and I think actually you'll find senior engineers
| and business leaders willing to do this too, but if red tape or
| incompetent HR contractors get in the way, you'll lose that
| talent too.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| 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.
| ajcp wrote:
| First I've heard of TechCongress, thanks much!
| robg wrote:
| 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.
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| Do you have any tips on how to stand out in the crowd? What is
| the government looking for in an application, generally?
| wslack wrote:
| Serving at USDS, posting personally. The biggest thing with
| the gov is the requirements on usajobs are always explained
| specifically so you know exactly what is needed.
|
| Beyond that, you'll want to show in your resume how you've
| delivered successfully and ideally in challenging
| circumstances, because working in the gov can be challenging.
| It will really vary depending on the job and agency.
| robg wrote:
| To echo wslack, experiences with moving initiatives through
| grit and collegiality is key. The PIF program is a bit easier
| to apply for than USAjobs and really focuses on being more of
| an entrepreneur-in-residence, as much as that's possible in
| government. I was able to work horizontally in a way that
| would have been challenging otherwise.
| ssalka wrote:
| Interesting that on the page of AI use cases[1], as well as the
| "full list" CSV[2], Department of Defense is simply left out. I
| guess they're happy to advertise all the Good Uses of AI, but
| don't want to publicize the Bad Uses that are definitely being
| pursued.
|
| [1] https://ai.gov/ai-use-cases/
|
| [2] https://ai.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/10/2023%20Consolidate...
| seydor wrote:
| But why? Isn't AI supposed to replace the AI laborers they want
| to covet?
| forthwall wrote:
| I would really love to work for the USDS; ever since their big
| publicity outreach during the obama admin, too bad the salaries
| are abysmal comparably to most tech companies. 184k top band in
| san francisco; 150k in DC. I could join a mid tier firm in SF for
| 250k base; not even bonus for a senior level. I wish they could
| create a special schedule.
| wslack wrote:
| FWIW both DC and SF top out at 183,500 now.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Lots of folks commenting about salary but that's not even the
| biggest drawback here. Org instability is.
|
| The presidential innovation fellows are 1-year stints, and after
| the next election, there might not be a next role. Maybe a
| campaign? Maybe a consulting firm? Unclear.
|
| Even if the parties don't flip - senior leaders churn through
| fast.
|
| I love this attempt, but I can't imagine trying to be a mid-
| senior tech leader in an organization where, in 18 months, the
| next guy might be trying to actively tear down your work.
| ajcp wrote:
| I mean, that's an issue with administration turn-over in
| general.
|
| With the PIF it looks like they get spread around to various
| agencies, so I don't think a fellow from one cohort is likely
| to be assigned to the same agency and project as a previous
| one.
| theultdev wrote:
| Is there any other type of development where you have to inform
| the US gov about it when you start developing it?
|
| The EO says you must inform the gov when you start the training
| the AI if it's a risk to public health, etc.
|
| How would one determine if it's a risk? Who determines the risk
| (I assume the government).
|
| So effectively that means the gov determines what is right/wrong,
| true/false. Not good.
| _mitterpach wrote:
| My friend, it is quite literally the goverment's job to decide
| what is right or wrong through drafting and enacting laws.
|
| I am not stating that having to inform the government when
| you're training models is right. It's an asinine way of
| thinking by people who have no idea what they're talking about
| and are severely out of touch. The laws they've enacted were
| based on fear, often propagated by OpenAI themselves. It is
| still their job to do that though.
| theultdev wrote:
| > My friend, it is quite literally the goverment's job to
| decide what is right or wrong through drafting and enacting
| laws.
|
| It is not their job to say what is true or false. That's
| propaganda. They also do not have the right to enforce what
| you train your AI to say.
|
| Would love to see the SC challenge this EO. It violates the
| 1A.
| acec wrote:
| Skynet.gov
|
| Soon.
| acec wrote:
| Skynet.gov
|
| Soon...
| spandextwins wrote:
| Most of the ai jobs advertised are with the IRS.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Silly question - but what do people in AI related roles do? Are
| they looking for software engineers to use/integrate AI products
| such as OpenAI APIs or are they looking for researchers working
| on AI papers trying to break new ground?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-30 23:01 UTC)