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Carnegie Mellon Struggles After Uber Poaches Top Robotics Researchers
ideonexus sends a report from the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) saying Uber has poached 40 researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in an attempt to jump-start development of autonomous vehicle technology. In February, Uber and CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center announced a partnership to work together on the technology. But according to the WSJ, Uber quickly offered massive bonuses and salary increases to simply bring many of the researchers in-house. The NREC's new director made a presentation a few weeks ago about strategies for rebuilding and recovering. The presentation said NREC’s funding from contracts to develop technology with the U.S. Department of Defense and other organizations was expected to sink as low as $17 million from the $30 million originally projected for this year. Some contracts scientists were working on disappeared when the researchers left, accounting for the drop in funding. And it appeared the center would have to raise salaries significantly to prevent more exits. A few scientists left NREC for other companies in Pittsburgh because of concerns the center might be shut down, said two people familiar with the departures.
Universities may be publicly funded, but when it comes to research patents they are as commercial as any corporation.
... that they'll even spend probably billions trying to replace the minimum wage guy at the wheel of the taxi with some automated system that probably won't work as well for decades if ever?
Someone explain this techno nerd obsession with replacing people with robots, I just don't get it.
the underlying economic principle behind replacing humans with machines is that humans (in this case, taxi drivers) won't be needed no more so they'll go back to school and get a better job with more value added to the overall economy. on the short run it may hurt (because yeah, 60yr old taxi driver won't become a doctor...) but on the long run its what makes economies evolve. thats why the average american is more educated and has a better job than the average chinese... FOR NOW.
I'm not sure if it is market value. It could be at a premium. In addition there was no indication they would actually be doing research. It could be a strategy, also used by MS, of poaching talent just to keep it from falling into the hands of the competition. Another factor to consider is that now it is private the information gathered is less likely to be openly shared. Proprietary and closed researched as opposed to open research. The situation could become very dysfunctional very quickly.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I think you have a little too romantic view of universities.
I run a small research-heavy business. Big research universities are now very disciplined about insisting on NDAs and not doing any work without a contract. They have very high overhead rates, pushing typical business costs covered by investment and sales onto R&D contracts. Last, and worst, high level researchers have insane demands on their time outside of research. There are professors I visit who don't make it into their labs more than once a month, and haven't performed meaningful lab work with their own two hands in years. Instead they spend their time raising money and marketing their results. Why has the university system has turned our best scientists and engineers into business development executives? Is that really helpful?
Many of the professors I talk to would love to get out of academia, not because there's more money in the private sector (there's not, really), but because there's more opportunity to actually do real work. The trick is finding a business or business partner you can trust.