| I work in this space and regularly interact with folks on both sides of that aisle. I would hire both. If you want to do anything serious in the space, you need the resources to hire a well-rounded team. Maybe in five years this won't be true, but at the moment this is a space where technological capabilities are driving policy making decisions. I had to choose one, the answer depends on if this is a soldier or a general. If it's a soldier ($ or $$ salary), I would choose a CS PhD who has demonstrated an interest and aptitude for learning about policy. There are a lot of opportunities for that person to learn about policy including part-time fellowships with think tanks and federal agencies, sometimes even embedded in a lawmaker's staff. Conversely, taking a policy person and getting them to the point where they can adequately process the fire hose of AI fairness/safety/explainability research is going to require a lot more effort. If it's a general ($$$ or $$$$ salary), I would choose whoever I could manage to hire that has the most influence in whatever agency or legislature is most relevant to the policies I want to push. But again, especially for soldiers, it's a false choice, and if you find yourself in a situation where you have to make this choice then you need to focus on fundraising instead of your first hire... |