Agencies Look To Expand Both Automation Tech and AI Workforce

The presence of artificial intelligence in the federal workforce is poised to expand, with officials emphasizing the human component behind automation and machine learning technologies. Officials including Gil Alterovitz, the Veterans' Affairs National Artificial Intelligence Institute director, and Martin Stanley, the branch chief of Strategic Technology at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, spoke during a Thursday panel and discussed digitization within their respective agencies. Alterovitz said that VA leadership has opened up new data scientist positions to serve as subject matter experts across the government. "We've been working toward building pathways toward developing and assessing that AI knowledge," he said. "We're working with a number of other agencies and really the idea there is to build that pipeline of talent with AI knowledge both from outside government [and] inside the government so that the result of that would be an agile and responsive federal workforce equipped with the necessary competencies for AI." Alterovitz also discussed the ethical parameters the VA has in place for its usage of automated technology.