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The feds have made some progress after President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order on AI, with the agency that manages the nation’s civil service issuing new guidelines on how federal agencies can use generative AI in some situations.
FedScoop reported the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) met a 180-day deadline under the executive order to issue a competency model and hiring guidance for federal AI roles—in other words, guidance on how agencies should define what AI skill sets they need and how they should recruit for AI roles—as well as similar guidance specific to civil engineering.
That guidance may quickly come into play. According to the Federal News Network, an interagency task force led by White House officials recently disclosed that federal agencies have hired at least 150 AI experts as of April 2024, and expect to have over 500 in total by the end of fiscal year 2025. That number does not include around 11,500 AI experts the Defense Department has plans to hire over the same time period.
OPM also issued other guidance on AI classification and talent acquisition, FedScoop reported, although those actions were required under a 2020 law.
Additionally, OPM has laid out basic guidance for federal employees seeking to use generative AI in their daily work. FedScoop previously reported that individual federal agencies have issued a patchwork of policies specific to their own workforces.
For example, some agencies like the Department of Energy have blocked employee access to ChatGPT, while NASA is testing its use in software development, and the Department of Agriculture has continued to assess potential risks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued a report identifying dozens of potential use cases and urging “foundational” investment in AI tools.
For the most part, the supplementary OPM guidance does not upset the status quo: Its first recommendation for federal workers is to “follow your agency’s policies and procedures, including for AI governance, data governance, privacy, and security.” OPM also outlined potential benefits and risks of AI use while cautioning federal workers to take basic precautions like only entering public information into prompts, avoiding unethical conduct, and reviewing outputs for accuracy and safety.
OPM additionally recommended not letting AI systems run themselves without human oversight: “Do not leave GenAI technology to operate autonomously without human accountability and control.”