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A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#71

Post by ramenmeal »

jseliger wrote: post #54
blackbagboys wrote: post #23

So a tiny handful of top performers - plausibly few enough that you could fit them all on a schoolbus - in an ultra-hot technical field are raking in huge sums, for the moment. Unless you are a top professor at an R1 research university or have a PhD from an R1 university studying under the other top minds in the field or are otherwise in the most elite fraction of the profession, it doesn't sound like this is partic…

Also, the "nonprofit" part is less relevant than many assume. Nonprofits are more like businesses than most people realize: http://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-b...

Actually I'd say its relevant for the article. As it states, non-profits can't give out stock, so the salaries are larger.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#72

Post by skybrian »

ggg9990 wrote: post #53
mmartinson wrote: post #11

"Mr. Zaremba said big tech companies were offering him two or three times what he believed his real market value was" Seems this fellow knows a whole lot more about computers than he does markets hahaha

If Bill Gates takes a fancy to a $100,000 mountain cabin and the owner doesn’t want to sell, he could offer $10 million for it, but that doesn’t increase the market value of the cabin.

Well, it might move it a bit, once word gets out and other people want a cabin too, like Bill Gates.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#73

Post by tomrod »

aje403 wrote: post #50
derefr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but they probably are worth more to their own companies —especially mid-sized companies—than those companies realize. Whether or not the market would pay more for them, more money could certainly be being made off their backs (as with the “administrative assistant” roles at medium-sized companies that often end up substituting for much of the role of HR, PR copywriting, office management and often even team coo…

That’s correct, but the pragmatic reality of most companies and data science with respect to internal politics and other bullshit is that they’re not going to find that mobility even if they network internally

Funny -- I actually see that as the single most important factor distinguishing folks making $1MM and $100k. There are plenty of overpaid geniuses, but really even more underpaid geniuses.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#74

Post by aje403 »

einstok wrote: post #33
malux85 wrote: post #2

Not unusual for people at the top of their game. I just turned down a 2M a year offer, and I have a friend who is making 2.9M USD. It's just a value proposition, he makes the company a lot more than 2.9 million a year, and when you negotiate you negotiate on value (and not on time) then you can justify these salaries.

Fake it till you make it dude

Hahaha

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#75

Post by mehrdadn »

jethro_tell wrote: post #66
mehrdadn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they want to be doing data science though? Otherwise they might as well not know how to do it.

>Otherwise they might as well not know how to do it. This is some real crazy talk here. The idea that you should limit yourself to the particular set of knowledge you wish to make money off of is insane. There's almost no such thing as wasted learning, even if you're not interested in pursuing it for a career. Maybe it's a hobby, maybe you touch it in a tangential way for your normal work where a basic understanding…

>> Otherwise they might as well not know how to do it.

> This is some real crazy talk here. The idea that you should limit yourself to the particular set of knowledge you wish to make money off of is insane.

Crazy talk? That's what you get when you blatantly ignore half of what I said. In the previous sentence I quite literally asked if these want to be doing data science to begin with. If they don't have any interest in it, then it doesn't matter whether or not they know how to do it as far as the company is concerned; they're not going to be doing it either way. Nowhere did I ever suggest that it's somehow a good idea for people to be limiting themselves to a particular knowledge set.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#76

Post by hinkley »

mmartinson wrote: post #11

"Mr. Zaremba said big tech companies were offering him two or three times what he believed his real market value was" Seems this fellow knows a whole lot more about computers than he does markets hahaha

If someone offered me three times what I think I’m worth I would assume something extremely illegal is going on. Like if you talk a ot this they will never find your body.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#77

Post by killjoywashere »

derefr wrote: post #30
mmartinson wrote: post #11

"Mr. Zaremba said big tech companies were offering him two or three times what he believed his real market value was" Seems this fellow knows a whole lot more about computers than he does markets hahaha

He might be trying to say that there are enough people like him in the market that it really shouldn't be a seller's market; but those others are mostly undervalued/ignored, while his value has been artificially inflated because of the (incorrectly!) perceived rarity of his skills. This is the pattern that goes on all the time inside companies: constant attempts to hire talent from the outside, coupled with complete…

I have 3 tests I use:

1) did you pass linear algebra?

2) show me some code you have written and deployed

3) here's Learn Python the Hard Way, start reading and come back with questions.

In the modern era, I have not found anyone who can pass test 1 and doesn't know code (except for 1 mathematician who's like 70 and no one cares if he can write code, his ideas are so insanely good that other people write his code for him, despite their day jobs). These people execute and come back with challenging problems for me.

Anyone who passes test 2 seems to be able to pick up whatever task I give them. I'm not entirely sure they understand what they're doing all the way down, so there's more review, but they can generally execute. Questions go back and forth.

If I get to test 3, well, no one has come back with a question yet.

What this tells me is there is plenty of signal in the culture that math and programming ability are valued. The people don't, ain't never gunna.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#78

Post by ethbro »

ggg9990 wrote: post #53
mmartinson wrote: post #11

"Mr. Zaremba said big tech companies were offering him two or three times what he believed his real market value was" Seems this fellow knows a whole lot more about computers than he does markets hahaha

If Bill Gates takes a fancy to a $100,000 mountain cabin and the owner doesn’t want to sell, he could offer $10 million for it, but that doesn’t increase the market value of the cabin.

Depends on the fungibility of cabins. If the $100,000 cabin next to yours sells for $10 million, you'd better believe it's going to change your cabin's appraisal.

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#79

Post by malux85 »

alexbeloi wrote: post #65
malux85 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 800 credit card transactions a second --- thats people making deposits into their accounts to bet with. (btw I think that's peak - I'm not 100% sure) The frontends (where the casino / betting games run) do a lot more than this, but they work against the balance in the account, it's the payment gateway that's doing 800/s

Why does a payment gateway need deep learning? I can't imagine an online betting system doing fraud detection on deposits.

It was a bit simplistic of me to summarize it as a payment gateway, it was actually 50-60% of their backend systems that was enhanced, it was called their "Big Data Project"

They do do fraud detection on the deposits, because of anti-money-laundering. The DL models also monitor various other types of abuse (bonus abuse and in-game abusers). They also are experimenting with Deep Reenforcement Learning to actually play some of the games

Re: A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit

#80

Post by sndean »

tomrod wrote: post #69
blackbagboys wrote: post #23

So a tiny handful of top performers - plausibly few enough that you could fit them all on a schoolbus - in an ultra-hot technical field are raking in huge sums, for the moment. Unless you are a top professor at an R1 research university or have a PhD from an R1 university studying under the other top minds in the field or are otherwise in the most elite fraction of the profession, it doesn't sound like this is partic…

From what I've seen, away from the coasts between $70k - $100k. PhD adds about 25k-40k to the figure, depending on industry.

That's pretty consistent with what I've been told, for me (PhD, East coast, with essentially no experience): ~120k
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