With the rapid growth of AI technologies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Treasury are facing challenges in finding talent with AI expertise, according to agency officials.
Lakshmi Raman, chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO) and director of AI at the CIA, discussed some of the challenges her agency faces when looking to recruit new AI talent during a panel discussion at the AI FedLab event hosted by GovCIO on June 12.
“One of the challenges I think we have is in our talent pipeline … There’s just such a demand for all of AI practitioners and those adjacent careers,” she said.
“We’re all playing in the same pool … it’s just the demand and supply for AI practitioners, data scientists, [and] data engineers,” she added. “So, it’s really about ensuring that [we are] recruiting, retaining, and upskilling our workforce so that they can meet the challenge that exists today.”
Raman noted that the rapid speed of AI adoption poses a challenge for her agency, as skill sets will need to keep pace with the emerging technology.
“I think another kind of challenge that we see is … the speed of this is just moving so quickly,” said Raman.
Brian Peretti, deputy CAIO and director of domestic and international cyber policy at the Department of Treasury, also discussed the crucial role of skill sets when tackling these issues head-on.
Peretti gave an example explaining that before the AI revolution, many parents were advised to teach their children to code. However, he said this advice might be less valuable than once thought.
“I don’t know if that’s important at all. Maybe it’s a different skill set, like monitoring the code and making sure it’s accurate. How do we build that understanding? How do we encourage the development of those skills,” he said.
“So, we need to align our resources to develop [needed] skill sets. It’s going to be really difficult, but we have to figure out how, as a society as we adapt to this new landscape,” he added.
