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AI Researchers Are Making More Than $1 Million, Even at a Nonprofit (nytimes.com)
One of the poorest-kept secrets in Silicon Valley has been the huge salaries and bonuses that experts in artificial intelligence can command. Now, a little-noticed tax filing by a research lab called OpenAI has made some of those eye-popping figures public [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. From a report: OpenAI paid its top researcher, Ilya Sutskever, more than $1.9 million in 2016. It paid another leading researcher, Ian Goodfellow, more than $800,000 -- even though he was not hired until March of that year. Both were recruited from Google. A third big name in the field, the roboticist Pieter Abbeel, made $425,000, though he did not join until June 2016, after taking a leave from his job as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Those figures all include signing bonuses.
[...] Salaries for top A.I. researchers have skyrocketed because there are not many people who understand the technology and thousands of companies want to work with it. Element AI, an independent lab in Canada, estimates that 22,000 people worldwide have the skills needed to do serious A.I. research -- about double from a year ago.
[...] Salaries for top A.I. researchers have skyrocketed because there are not many people who understand the technology and thousands of companies want to work with it. Element AI, an independent lab in Canada, estimates that 22,000 people worldwide have the skills needed to do serious A.I. research -- about double from a year ago.
Since we all here are experts in this field, we can cash in. Right?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Salaries for top A.I. researchers have skyrocketed because there are not many people who understand the technology
...because there are not many hiring managers who understand the technology, so they throw money at it instead.
There will be 4 times as many AI "experts" next year and more than half of them will not be able to find their ass with both hands and AI. But the MBAs will hire them for key roles because AI is the new blockchain & everyone just must be doing it - whatever it is.
Back in my younger days we occasionally solved problems using trial and error to identify the best solution. Today that's called "AI using machine learning" and costs more, because...I don't know why.
Right now it's all deep-learning neural networks, so linear algebra combined with calculus and statistics (of course, statistics with calculus), and C++ kinds of parallel processing. If you can do all that then the theoretical parts are things you can get caught up on in six months.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Peter Norvig is probably worth mentioning, since he is one of the biggest names in AI, one of the biggest names in programming, and almost certainly is making millions at Google. He's the kind of guy who could create Bitcoin in his spare time if he wanted to.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
50 years ago, there was already a pretty good foundation of solution space search techniques. No need to 'trial and error' stuff. Put these together with things like Bayes classifiers and you've got a pretty good start at AI. Just not in real time, with the slow processors of the day.
Have gnu, will travel.
What, no "AI coding bootcamps" to drive salaries down?
Only because the AI's themselves are against this.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Quite revealing to me was listening to a Freakonomics Radio episode where they detail how businesses just dont do A/B testing in spite of how powerful it is. Even when they come in as consultants and actually do some A/B testing for the business, once they leave the business is back to making decisions arbitrarily.
"His name was James Damore."
I don't understand what I'm supposed to be outraged about. There are people who presumably have valuable skills. They are recruited with money. Am I supposed to dislike them for getting paid well? Is this part of the "let's hate the successful people" campaign that's so popular recently?
You can't use someone else's engine if you want to invent new AI. Some tools like twnsorfoow can help, but if you want to make a million in annual salary you have to be able to do more than train a NN.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
At those kinds of wages for employees, pretty much ANY company is going to be non-profit!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The AC is correct. Many studies have shown that around 80k/year is where happiness levels peak. Sure there are places like silicon valley where you likely need more to be comfortable. That 80k is also interesting as that's also approximately the same point where your kids are more likely to make less that you do. Below that point your kids generally make more that you do and above that point your kids tend to make less that you do. Basically, that's the point where you can live comfortable without struggling and after that point extra money isn't a major factor in happiness. Quality of life, work life balance, etc... start to play a more important role. I make 90k per year with 3 kids and have more than enough money to live comfortably. My focus for several years has been to try to reduce my hours worked while keeping my salary the same.