Cloud Hosting

The concern about an artificial intelligence, or AI, workforce shortage in the United States is rapidly becoming a top national security priority. Calls for additional legislative action are mounting as the national security community sees talent as a key enabler in outcompeting China. An increasing number of proposals, including those in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and others based on the recommendations of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, have the goal of growing and cultivating the domestic AI workforce based on the premise of shortages.

However, there is little data on actual U.S. AI labor market dynamics to inform whether there is an AI workforce shortage, and if so, what type and to what extent. Moreover, there is no standard definition of AI workforce. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine which workers are in short supply and how to best address it.

Workforce shortages generally come in two distinct forms, which is important for targeting policy. The first is a skills shortage in the traditional economic sense: an insufficient supply of talent with specific, in-demand skills often due to high barriers to entry. For example, a critical AI occupation often discussed synonymously with AI workforce, computer research scientists, requires years of advanced education and training. Domestic supply is limited, and as a result, the United States also relies on foreign talent.

The second type is a local talent shortage, in an organization or geographic area. There are many possible reasons for local shortages workers geographic preferences, state occupational licensing requirements and, at the organizational level, limited career advancement opportunities, poor hiring practices, uniquely specific skills and/or experience requirements, below market average wages and compensation, among others.

New CSET research provides insight into the reality of U.S. AI talent shortages. We assess the state of the U.S. AI workforce, analyzing traditional economic indicators like employment and wages. We use an occupation-based definition of the AI workforce, enabling analysis using occupational data collected by the federal government over time. We also consider the entire team of talent involved with the design, development and implementation of AI.

To assess the extent of shortages, we focus on five key occupations: Computer and information research scientists; software developers; mathematicians, statisticians and data scientists; user experience designers and project management specialists.

Although it is difficult to make an evidence-based determination, we find three variations in workforce dynamics across the five occupations. First, extremely strong employment and wage growth for computer and information research scientists over 2015 to 2019, coupled with high barriers to entry, likely indicates there is more demand than supply. Second, in other high-demand occupations such as software developers and data scientists, our analysis suggests existing education pipelines have responded as designed to meet rising demand. Over 2015 to 2018, for example, computer science and engineering were the fastest growing undergraduate majors, adding more than 200,000 new graduates. Third, in the case of project management specialists and user experience designers, we do not find evidence of a gap in demand relative to supply.

The divergent trends within the AI workforce have implications for future policy. Importantly, we need to prioritize growing, cultivating, and attracting the highest tier of AI talent. Previous CSET research recommends increasing graduate education scholarships and reforming and streamlining immigration pathways for top AI talent entering the U.S. This also involves a better understanding of STEM workforce pipeline leakages domestically, which start early and continue throughout the entire education lifecycle and well into ones career.

For technical occupations where talent pipelines are working, we need to ensure their sustainability; for example, by incentivizing AI companies to closely partner with state workforce boards and universities to help schools prepare students with the necessary skills. For nontechnical AI occupations, the diversity of potential backgrounds suggests prioritizing AI literacy education for everyone.

Finally, in the quest to expand the talent pipeline, the prevailing wisdom of the need for a four-year college degree should be carefully considered. The current proliferation of certifications, coding academies and other online courses aimed at upskilling U.S. workers provide an alternate pathway for some. However, it is unclear if most employers are accepting these alternative credentials. This creates a risk of leaving many potentially qualified workers on the sidelines, if non-college graduates are less able to compete.

Effective education and workforce policy requires understanding the relevant labor market dynamics, including insights on the existence of workforce shortages. Our research suggests that policies aimed at equipping Americas talent for tomorrows jobs cannot and should not be a one-size-fits-all approach.

Diana Gehlhaus is a research fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), focused on AI education and workforce issues as it relates to the United States, China, and U.S. Department of Defense. Follow her on Twitter @dianagcarew.

View original post here:

The reality of America's AI talent shortages | TheHill - The Hill

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Prof Madhavan Mukund will take over as the new Director of Chennai Mathematical Institute, a deemed-to-be-university that combines research and teaching in mathematics, computing and physics, from May 1.

He succeeds Rajeeva Karandikar who would be retiring from the Institute after 10 years as Director. Having been associated with CMI since its founding in 1989, Prof. Mukund has donned a variety of rolesincluding Dean of Studies from 2011 and Deputy Director from 2019to incubate, nurture and shape the Institute. He has had extensive academic collaborations in India and overseas, worked with research and development teams of major industries and evangelized computing education across the country, a release stated.

Prof Mukund is currently the Director of the International Research Laboratory in Computer Science set up at CMI by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. He has also played a leadership role in the Indian computer science community as President of both the ACM India Council and the Indian Association for Research in Computing Science (IARCS). In addition, Prof Mukund has been the National Coordinator of the Indian Computing Olympiad since 2002 and served as the Executive Director of the International Olympiad in Informatics from 2011 to 2014.

It is a privilege and an honour to be selected as the Director of CMI following the legendary Prof. CS Seshadri and the respected probabilist and psephologist Prof. Rajeeva Karandikar, said Prof. Mukund. CMIs global standing in mathematics, computing and physics is largely because of the robust research-driven teaching model, world class faculty and quality of students. At a time when mathematics and computing are transforming every facet of our lives, I am quite excited about the opportunities for CMI to set benchmarks in teaching, research and industry-sponsored consultancy and to make a meaningful impact on society at large.

To further strengthen CMIs ability to make a bigger impact on education and research in new-age areas including cryptography, blockchain, cybersecurity, the Institute has inducted three eminent mathematicians and computer scientists to its Governing CouncilProf. Manindra Agrawal (IIT Kanpur), Prof. V Kumar Murty (Fields Institute, Canada) and Prof. V Srinivas (TIFR, Mumbai), the release stated.

Prof Manindra Agrawal is a computer scientist who is celebrated for his finding that primality can be tested in polynomial time, for which he won the Clay Research Award. He has served as Deputy Director of IIT Kanpur and works closely with the Government of India on projects in diverse areas such as the National Blockchain Project, cybersecurity for critical infrastructure and the national supermodel for Covid-19.

Prof Kumar Murty is a renowned number theorist and algebraic geometer at the University of Toronto with active interests in application domains such as cryptography, information security and mathematical modelling. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India). In 2019, he became the Director of the Fields Institute, an internationally reputed centre for research in the mathematical sciences.

Prof V Srinivas is a renowned mathematician specializing in algebraic geometry. He has been a Professor at TIFR, Mumbai for many years. He has received several awards, such as the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize and the TWAS Prize. He is presently the Chairman of the National Board for Higher Mathematics, the release added.

Originally posted here:

Madhavan Mukund to take charge as director of Chennai Mathematical Institute from May 1 - The New Indian Express

Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drives daily audio interviews onApple PodcastsorPodcastOne.

HotSOSmight sound like something in the condiments aisle. But its actually an annual event held by the National Security Agency. Hot Topics on Science of Security, its formal name, will be held online next week. For what happens at the event and some of science challenges in security, Federal Drive with Tom Temin checked in with NSA science researcher, Adam Tagert.

Tom Temin: Mr. Tagert, good to have you on.

Adam Tagert: Its great to be here.

Tom Temin: And when you say the science of security, what areas of security are we talking about? Is it mainly cyber?

Adam Tagert: Were talking cybersecurity, everything dealing with computers, mobile devices, things like that.

Tom Temin: Okay, thats enough to keep any conference occupied. And when you mentioned the science of security, thats an unusual term because most people talk about the technology of security. What do you mean by science?

Adam Tagert: Well, with science, were talking about what is the reasons were doing things with technology, we want to understand the concepts, the theories and the models of how both technology and humans behave in the cyber world. So that way, when we develop a defense, we actually have real confidence that it does what we think it intends to do.

Tom Temin: And what are some of the scientific disciplines? I mean, what are the kinds of people and professions that look at these questions?

Adam Tagert: Okay, so you obviously will think of computer science and electrical engineering. But we also have projects dealing with philosophers who are looking at the what does it mean to be resilient? We also have human behavior, people in psychology trying to understand the human aspects of peoples behavior with cyber. So its a very broad discipline across disciplines.

Tom Temin: I was wondering if it also includes the behavior science of people that might be the recipients of cyber attacks, especially phishing attacks? Which, golly, they are really some sophisticated emails coming out these days?

Adam Tagert: Absolutely. That is a key component of dealing with cybersecurity was looking at phishing. We had a project once looking at how different countries peoples responded to phishing, its different depending if youre looking in United States or say India.

Tom Temin: Got it. And I guess it probably varies by age group to some given population.

Adam Tagert: Yeah. The different motivations between older people, theres definitely lots of senior attacks versus how young people are maybe more cynical when it comes to receiving an email.

Tom Temin: Alright, and tell us a little bit about the conference. Who attends and how does it all work?

Adam Tagert: Thats us, we get attendees from all three government, academia and industry, which is a great environment for collaboration. We have government people talking about the problems and some of our approaches. And then we have academics that are working on the same problems. And were trying to bring everything together. And industry is saying, hey this is how we operate. And this is our challenges, because its all different flavors of the same challenge. And one of the great things about HotSOS is we really talk about ongoing research instead of a lot of traditional conferences, where we talk about research that is done, and were just publishing it for everyone to look at. HotSOS is about the ongoing, so we actually read draft papers, and we have 45 minute in-depth discussions led by discussants, who in some cases theyre NSA zone researchers who are leading discussions on these important topics. Let me give you one really interesting example. We have a work in progress paper from Towson University, which is in Baltimore. And theyre looking at how election workers, the poll workers deal with cybersecurity. Theyve been working with the state of Maryland on training. And in this study, theyve done a survey of 2,000 workers in 13 states just to see how they respond to cyber threats and what their perceptions is. And really, hopefully, we can get some better security there.

Tom Temin: And what about some of the hard sciences. I know that quantum computing is a topic in cybersecurity, also dealing with data and processing it in encrypted form, which is very difficult for processors and so on. Are those types of questions also part of this?

Adam Tagert: Absolutely. Dealing with computing the cloud where you want to keep everything encrypted just for your own privacy. You dont want people to see what data is, is in fact, one of the topics of our keynote from NSA. So our keynote from NSA, Nick Felts ,will be talking about the effort to keep as much as possible encrypted when youre computing the cloud. So its going to be an interesting talk there.

Tom Temin: Now, when this conference was in person, where did it take place?

Adam Tagert: So it rotated around the country. So NSA funds a series of LabLits, which are small virtual labs at universities in the United States, and HotSOS would rotate around them. So sometimes we were in Raleigh, North Carolina with North Carolina State. Other times wed be in Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. So we would move around the country.

Tom Temin: And now that it has been, I guess this must be your second time in a row virtual, correct?

Adam Tagert: It has. This is the second virtual. Last year we were supposed to be in Lawrence, Kansas, but we ended up being in virtual Lawrence, Kansas.

Tom Temin: Yeah, I dont know which is better in Lawrence, Kansas. But with respect to attendance, do you find what other conferences find that instead of getting scores or hundreds, you get tens of thousands because anyone can go?

Adam Tagert: Well, one of the benefits is our sponsorship has allowed us to waive registration fees, so anyone can participate for free. Traditional attendance was about 150 people. Last year, we had 430 attendees in the virtual setting. And so far this year, were over 550 registered attendees.

Tom Temin: Yeah. So its almost tempting to never go back to in person because theres no lunch to be served, no airplane to be ticketed. But another question I had to with respect to the topics, again, is the security clearance process. And theres a RAND study just out on maybe ways to update the criteria for security clearance, given the millennial age and the younger people coming in potentially to the federal and contractor workforce. Does the science of security include how do we evaluate people in a way that gives some higher degree of confidence that they can be trusted?

Adam Tagert: So for the science for security program, we dont actually look at the security aspect of how people are evaluated for clearances, were really looking at the cyber aspect. So an expert in those areas would probably have a better idea of how to evaluate somebody.

Tom Temin: Okay, well well just hope the people that get these secrets in their hands can keep them, but thats a conference of another sort, I guess. And looking to the conference, which is taking place next week, what are the grand challenges? Does it look in those terms at what are the big challenges for cybersecurity in the science realm? Whats the next big frontier?

Adam Tagert: So were actually having a discussion on what is the next challenges for the science security for the 2020s. We opened an open call for ideas and we have 45 topics to discuss during the conference on it. Obviously, human behavior aspects of it are going to be a key component of the challenges. How to have resilient computers so that they can continue to operate even after we compromised. Because saying, I received the compromise, Im going to turn off all my systems and build it over is not a realistic solution. Metrics, how to value of what device or software is more secure than others. And those are just some of the ideas that we have been working on and probably will continue to be working on for the hard challenges.

Tom Temin: And what is involved with attending if someone would like to? Can you just do it online?

Adam Tagert: You can do it online. There are no apps or anything to install, you just go to the NSA website to find the article on HotSOS. Or you can visit the HotSOS website at sos-vo.org.

Tom Temin: Adam Tagert is a security science researcher at the National Security Agency. Thanks so much for joining me.

Adam Tagert: Thank you.

View original post here:

NSA gathers together the top minds in what it calls the Science of Security - Federal News Network