The United States House of Representatives is to consider a resolution detailing a national strategy for the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) across Government Agencies.
The strategy is the culmination of months of work by two Representatives across the partisan divide, Robin Kelly (Democrat-Illinois – pictured) and Will Hurd (Republican-Texas) in partnership with the Bipartisan Policy Centre.
The strategy is meant to outline a whole-of-government vision for artificial intelligence, laying the groundwork for a more unified AI effort across Government, as opposed to piecemeal, Agency-by-Agency efforts to implement the technology.
Ms Kelly said she hopes the resolution would give Federal employees and Agency innovators the support they needed to develop useful AI tools.
“When it comes to AI and the Federal Government workforce, I believe our people — our human capital — is our strategic advantage,” Ms Kelly said.
She said AI was marketed as a tool that would free up Federal employees from doing the rote management tasks associated with large amounts of data, instead, they would be able to focus on performing higher-level tasks.
“In order to realise the benefits of AI on Government work while maintaining job security for Federal employees, the workforce needs preparation,” Ms Kelly said.
“The resolution indicates Agencies need to focus on recruiting talent with technical expertise as well as allow technical experts the flexibility to provide assistance to multiple Departments or Agencies across the Federal Government,” she said.
Ms Kelly addressed fears that AI would take jobs away from Federal workers, acknowledging some jobs would be lost, but also new ones created.
“What we need to do is create mechanisms where those who lose their jobs have the opportunity to be reskilled.”
“We also need to be training current and future employees to work with AI because it will fundamentally change the way we work as Government and non-Government employees,” she said.
Mr Hurd said the resolution explicitly stated both recruiting new talent and retaining existing Federal employees was critical.
“There is no way to address the shortage of technical talent in Government without retraining the current workforce,” Mr Hurd said.
Washington 24 September 2020
