From TIME
Exclusive: Trump Pushes Out AI Experts Hired By Biden
By Brian Bennett
Donald Trump wants the U.S. to be a leader in artificial intelligence.
In January, he signed an executive order intended to enhance America’s "dominance" in AI. In early April, his Administration directed every federal agency to find and hire more people with experience designing and deploying artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, he signed yet another executive order on AI, this one about integrating it into the nation's schools. “AI is where it seems to be at," Trump said.
But Trump’s erratic purge of the federal workforce has undermined those very efforts. The Biden Administration moved aggressively in its final 18 months to convince more than 200 AI technology experts to forgo the private sector for the federal workforce, through what was called the ”National AI Talent Surge.” The new hires were deployed throughout the government and used AI to find ways to reduce Social Security wait times, simplify tax filings, and help veterans track their medical care. Most of them were quickly pushed out by the new administration, multiple former federal officials tell TIME...
Putting that into action will be harder than it needed to be, says Deirdre Mulligan, who directed the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office in the Biden White House. “The Trump Administration’s actions have not only denuded the government of talent now, but I’m sure that for many folks, they will think twice about whether or not they want to work in government,” Mulligan says. “It’s really important to have stability, to have people’s expertise be treated with the level of respect it ought to be and to have people not be wondering from one day to the next whether they’re going to be employed...”
Deirdre Mulligan is a professor at the I School. Previously, she served as the Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Biden Administration. Her research explores legal and technical means of protecting values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and fairness in emerging technical systems.
