Hello and welcome to the first Thursday edition of Eye on AI. In case you missed Tuesday’s newsletter, the first news item to know is that we’re doubling our AI coverage to bring Eye on AI to your inbox twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. AI continues to be one of the most important topics—technology or otherwise—affecting our world, and this will allow us to bring you even more updates and analysis on the latest AI news, research, and policy. Now, let’s get into it.
Today we’re diving into the federal government’s AI hiring frenzy. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in recent days took new action to speed up hiring on select high-priority AI positions, showing how the federal government is intensifying its search for AI talent as it competes with the similarly red-hot AI talent market in the private sector.
In a memo, the Office authorized government-wide direct hire authority for four AI-related positions: AI computer engineers, AI computer scientists, IT specialists, and management and program analysts. Direct hire authority expedites hiring to fill critical roles more quickly by eliminating certain requirements such as rating and ranking, veterans’ preference, and other typical selection procedures. Back in September, OPM similarly authorized direct hire for operations research and data science positions related to AI.
OPM spokesperson Viet Tran told Eye on AI that roles are selected for the authorization according to scope or urgency, and that in this case, the urgency of the Biden Administration’s October AI executive order was clear. Already, some affected job listings on AI.gov have been designated prominently as Direct Hire Authority (DHA), such as this listing for a computer scientist role at the Internal Revenue Service.
In addition to direct hire, OPM additionally authorized temporary excepted service appointments to bolster agencies to carry out the nontechnical work needed to support the executive order. This includes onboarding technical AI staff, conducting workforce studies, and other department-specific AI tasks.
If this all sounds in the weeds, it is. But AI has sparked a unique recruiting campaign that almost has a wartime feel. “The federal government is searching far and wide to fill new cutting-edge positions,” as FedScoop recently wrote, tapping every avenue from offering training opportunities to recruiting foreign workers. And for businesses, the government is coming for their talent.
The AI.gov page is primarily dedicated to recruiting and reads like a call to service, prompting Americans to “join the national AI talent surge.” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar similarly characterized AI workers joining the government’s efforts as the next great chapter of great American scientific contribution.
In a recent episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Mina Hsiang, the administrator of the United States Digital Service (USDS), emphasized why AI recruitment is critical for the government to get this new technology right, and pitched AI technologists on why they should work in government.
“The problem and the impact should be deeply motivating,” she said, adding that they’re looking for “people who are excited about increasing trust in government, who are excited to solve these problems in a long-term way.”
With the tech industry’s massive pay packages and high demand for AI talent across all industries, the government certainly has steep competition in the private sector. Yet Hsiang has a decent case. Many tech workers feel that tech companies have recklessly sowed societal harm, technology hasn’t delivered on its promise to improve our lives, and profits have repeatedly been prioritized over people. Combined with the higher-than-ever stakes of AI, that feeling might be enough to convince some to answer the call.
It’s not clear exactly how many AI technologists the federal government is ultimately trying to bring on, though it has previously said it wants to appoint as many as 400 Chief AI Officers across the various federal agencies. Most are just ramping up their AI strategies, and each agency is responsible for filling positions according to its AI needs, said Tran. But the government is clearly firing on all cylinders, with more action to come. Biden’s order contained a laundry list of actions around attracting AI talent and building up its AI workforce, such as mandates to establish a program to identify and attract top talent in AI and train 500 new AI researchers by 2025, to name a few of many.
And with that, more AI news below.
Sage Lazzaro
sage.lazzaro@consultant.fortune.com
sagelazzaro.com
AI IN THE NEWS
The market kicks off 2024 with signs it’s sobering on AI hype. Some of the biggest gainers of 2023 have already registered the steepest drops as stocks fell sharply earlier this week, reported the Wall Street Journal, pointing to Nivida, AMD, and Adobe, among others. After the excitement over ChatGPT sparked a blockbuster 2023, in which the Nasdaq Composite jumped 43% for the year (its second-best annual performance in 15 years) and tech companies saw gains more than double the broad index’s overall performance, it could be an early sign investors will want to see AI put its money where its model is in the new year.
Intel spins out its AI software business to form Articul8 AI. That’s according to Reuters. The new entity, pronounced “Articulate AI,” is backed by digital-focused asset manager DigitalBridge and will have an independent board of directors, though Intel will remain a shareholder. Arun Subramaniyan, formerly vice president and general manager in Intel’s data center and AI group, will become chief executive of Articul8 and alluded to potential customers’ concerns about sharing their data with large cloud companies for AI work as the reason for the spinoff.
California lawmakers prepare to introduce several new AI bills as the new legislative session convenes. California lawmakers returned to work yesterday, and AI is top of the agenda, according to the Associated Press. Bills expected to be introduced will target the use of AI systems to discriminate against people, studios’ abilities to replicate the work of actors and artists, and public safety risks including AI-generated cyberattacks, bioweapons, and misinformation campaigns. The state has a particular interest in regulating the technology as California-based companies such as OpenAI and Google lead the charge on AI.
FORTUNE ON AI
Predictions from top investors on AI in 2024 —Jessica Mathews
The use cases for AI at companies are ‘exploding globally,’ says a Wedbush analyst —Sheryl Estrada
I advised the EU on its landmark AI Act. Here’s how it got preempted by the U.S. and U.K., why it almost got derailed by ChatGPT, and how it will shape regulation in 2024 —David Haber
Microsoft’s first-in-three-decades ‘key’ change is a tangible symbol of CEO Satya Nadella’s AI bet —Rachyl Jones
BRAINFOOD
AI goes legal. At this time last year, it seemed AI’s impact on the legal field was getting off to a reckless start. A New York firm called DoNotPay had just made headlines for trying to recruit a defendant to use ChatGPT live in the courtroom via an earpiece to fight a traffic ticket, kicking off a frenzy of discourse about what generative AI will mean for the field. The stunt never happened (multiple state bars issued warnings, and one even threatened jail time), but the year since has shown that the appetite for AI-assisted legal practices is real and growing.
Yesterday, London and New York-based legal startup Robin AI announced it raised an additional $26 million to advance its efforts to bring generative AI to the legal sector. What’s more, the company said it’s seen a 4x increase in customers of its “legal copilot” and a 5x increase in revenue from Fortune 500 customers over the past year. The copilot, which is powered by Anthropic’s Claude and available as a Microsoft Word add-on, helps legal teams quickly create, review, and extract information from contracts using natural language prompts, cutting the time it takes to review contracts by 85%, according to the company. And Robin AI is not alone—a wide variety of similar companies such as IronClad, Harvey, and Darrow have cropped up and raised significant funding, while individual lawyers increasingly tap ChatGPT in their case prep, for better or worse.
Even at the highest levels of the court system, AI is now taking center stage. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts dedicated a significant portion of his 2023 Year-End Report to the subject, opining on both the benefits AI can bring to the field (“dramatically increase access to key information for lawyers and non-lawyers alike”) and the potential risks (“invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law.”)
“I predict that human judges will be around for a while. But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work—particularly at the trial level—will be significantly affected by AI,” he concluded the report, warning for “caution and humility” as we enter the era of AI law.
There’s no denying the field is ripe for disruption, as legal professionals are drowning in documents and busy work perhaps more than workers in any other field. At the same time, AI’s mad rush into the world has kept legal professionals exceptionally busy as AI upends copyright, employment, and everything else. As we reckon with all the other changes AI is likely to bring, they could certainly use all the help they can get.
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