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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

#31

Post by not2b »

robomartin wrote: post #24
rm999 wrote: post #6

> 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. 425k after signing bonus is probably closer to 300-350k base + annual bonus, which feels low for someone in such a distinguished position (close to a typical specializ…

Context is always important. At the end of the day it is about what value you bring to the table. If the work fits your experience and capabilities well, charging anything between $150 and $250+ per hour on a long term contract isn't out of the question, I've done it many time, with multi-year engagements. The best deal I did was some 25 years ago was substantially above that range. Of course, part of it is being a g…

Contract numbers shouldn't be directly compared to employee compensation numbers. A contractor has additional expenses and taxes and can have periods between contracts with nothing coming in, so needs to be making more money to have equivalent net income after taxes and expenses.

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#33

Post by jonbaer »

chubot wrote: post #8
alphagrep12345 wrote: post #2

How replicable is this thing? Looking from a monetary perspective, is it worth getting a Ph.D. in AI? Assuming you like both academic research and working in the industry, if you were to make a choice whether to do a Ph.D. or not, how would you make it?

Remember that Hinton and other deep learning pioneers labored in obscurity for over a decade, probably closer to two. Techniques like deep learning were out of fashion for a long time. Google was making tons of money on non-AI techniques; I remember Sergey Brin saying he was surprised by the deep learning breakthroughs in 2012 because the conventional wisdom was that "AI doesn't work". And people who did Ph.D's under…

Not to also mention that much of this would still be in the stone age if it were not for MUCH faster and accessible hardware (GPU/TPU/QPU/XPU), what I think makes up for the high salaries is that these people are quite aware of how to allocate for hardware on the ML/RL/AI training side and how to allocate time for the people responsible for tagging and optimizing models. They know how to reach the objective(s) in training/testing/optimizing already.

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#34

Post by sgt101 »

hdrujvw-4579 wrote: post #15
high_derivative wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Im an AI researcher at a big tech company. It would have been far wiser financially to start as a software engineer after my Bachelor's. Also, having a few NEURIPS or ICML papers is not a hiring guarantee any more. It's decidedly not 2015-17 any longer. In particular, I feel bad for the people who started their PhDs with $$$ in their eyes around that time. Don't get me wrong, they will all be employable…

>I have my doubts there will be cushy FAANG jobs for everyone capable of playing around with network architectures in a few years. Presumably because technical needs of FAANG might be moving in other directions. Could someone comment why this might be the case, and what other fields might look relevant

I think that the other force is that the skills that are being created by ML Ph.D programs get commodified.

I don't think this will happen, because typing "import tensorflow.keras.*" isn't the skill that an ML Ph.D develops, and it is the part of the skill set that is (and will be) commodity along with the automl stuff.

Constructing a problem, handling the data and running a proper process is harder, and it's the value that will put processes that use ML at risk, and deliver differentiating value for the ones where it works.

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#35

Post by xpe »

nefitty wrote: post #17
mellosouls wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. If you're empty enough to follow a PhD solely for the money, there are far safer financial bets. Go into medicine or something. Not that I'd want to experience that bedside manner...

It is not fair to call someone "empty" because their motivation stems from something you don't share. It does not make their work and contribution any less difficult or necessary.

nefitty: You make some good points.

I would like to share my views around fairness and judgement. My apologies if the numbering makes them seem formal; my intention is only to give them a rough ordering.

1. One should not be eager to criticize others.

2. One should seek to understand others.

3. However, one should be willing, intellectually, to differentiate between aspects and assess those differences.

4. It requires some care to balance 1, 2, and 3.

5. One should be honest with oneself, at least, about your conclusions.

6. One should be comfortable with your assessments, particularly if you've thought them through.

7. One should be willing to share these thoughts with others, because debate will improve your thinking, scope, and articulation.

8. One should accept the consequences of what you say.

9. One should learn from what you say.

10. One should not refrain from making assessments only out of a fear that someone will label you as "judgmental".

11. Some people criticize others because they dislike the other person judging others. This is somewhat ironic, because in some cases this criticism is premature. If one judges another without engaging to develop an understanding, I think that is unfortunate. Doing so would be acting in a way inconsistent with one's own values.

All of these "should" statements should be adjusted to the situation. For example, repeated experience, if reflected on fairly, may warrant that some particular people do not deserve the same degree, say, of "benefit of the doubt".

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#36

Post by maccard »

Railsify wrote: post #28
currymj wrote: post #21

Misleading article and headline; a few celebrity researchers in high-up positions make this much. You can probably find some chemists who make $1M too if they have made it to executive positions. Most AI researchers in industry make a lot of money, $200k+, but that is not so outrageous in the context of big tech companies. And in fact the vast majority of AI researchers are making $20k-$30k a year, because they are g…

And if they live in California 200k does not seem like a lot.

Assuming 4k/month on rent, your leftover pay after taxes and rent is more than most senior engineers gross in the rest of the US/Western Europe. 200k is a lot.

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#37

Post by jstummbillig »

Railsify wrote: post #28
currymj wrote: post #21

Misleading article and headline; a few celebrity researchers in high-up positions make this much. You can probably find some chemists who make $1M too if they have made it to executive positions. Most AI researchers in industry make a lot of money, $200k+, but that is not so outrageous in the context of big tech companies. And in fact the vast majority of AI researchers are making $20k-$30k a year, because they are g…

And if they live in California 200k does not seem like a lot.

If the context simply is "median California household income", then it should seem like a lot, because it really still is a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_b...

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#38

Post by CinchWrench »

throwaway713 wrote: post #26
codingslave wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its really not that high. I was reading the Ian Goodfellow, creator of GANs, was only making 800k at google. Which is honestly, really low for someone who has done ground breaking research in neural networks.

Wow, that's it? I mean that's a lot (objectively compared to most people's compensation), but I think my skip manager makes that much...

*Cries in fortune 500 wage slave

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#39

Post by seibelj »

Computer science researchers should form partnerships like lawyers and doctors. They could extract far, far more value out of mega corps than they get paid as salary employees. We are at a moment when AI tech is so black box that they could create a company that is itself a black box.

Re: A.I. researchers are making more than $1M, even at a nonprofit

#40

Post by xenocyon »

currymj wrote: post #21

Misleading article and headline; a few celebrity researchers in high-up positions make this much. You can probably find some chemists who make $1M too if they have made it to executive positions. Most AI researchers in industry make a lot of money, $200k+, but that is not so outrageous in the context of big tech companies. And in fact the vast majority of AI researchers are making $20k-$30k a year, because they are g…

Also, it's not unusual for star professionals in other fields to make that much at nonprofits. E.g. neurosurgeons can often make that much at nonprofit hospitals. And if one gets into executive comp at a large nonprofit, a million a year is no big deal.

But there is a large variance in the nonprofit world, and it's more common for a PhD in CS to earn something like $60K at research nonprofits. Other nonprofit employees - social workers, for instance - have it even worse, earning not much more than minimum wage with Masters degrees. Sadly, many nonprofits capitalize on the idealism of applicants to compensate for poor comp and grueling working conditions.

So the word 'nonprofit' really doesn't convey much information; it all depends on specifics.

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