Biden Seeks $32 Million to Lure AI Experts From Private Sector

An initiative to boost the number of technologists with AI expertise working in the government would receive a $32 million infusion under the president’s budget request for fiscal 2025.

The General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and the US Digital Services—which are responsible for managing governmentwide services and contracts—are seeking the extra funding to help recruit fresh artificial intelligence talent into federal agencies.

Recruiting technologists has historically posed a challenge because of the pay gap between the federal government and the private sector. Finding experts with a high level of technical knowledge is especially important for the government as it works to both support AI innovation and to help mitigate potential harms caused by the technology.

Details of the program, called the National AI Talent Surge, were included in President Joe Biden’s October AI executive order. It seeks to use higher pay and other incentives to bring artificial intelligence expertise into government and to hire for technology roles that previously have been difficult to fill.

Biden Signs Sweeping Order Regulating Artificial Intelligence

The White House is also seeking $75 million for the Technology Modernization Fund, less than half the $200 million requested by the Biden administration last year. The fund allocates extra money for technology projects at government agencies and is centrally managed by the GSA.

The Biden administration’s executive order in October imposed new requirements to better mitigate privacy harms, including those from AI.

Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The administration is proposing extra funding for federal agencies to establish agency chief AI officers, who will be responsible for their agency’s use of AI as well as funding to establish minimum safeguards for government use of AI to protect the rights and safety of the American public.

AI Order Puts Agencies Front and Center in Building Safeguards

Strengthening oversight of government use of technology was a key element of the Biden administration’s executive order on AI issued last year. It required the Justice Department to issue a request for information on potential updates to the E-Government Act of 2002, which dictates the management and government of online government services.

That request is intended to improve privacy impact assessments conducted by federal agencies to better mitigate privacy harms, including those from AI.