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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 HenryKissinger »

adambyrtek wrote: post #42
ben_w wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t Black & Sholes win a Nobel Prize? I don’t think it’s fair to compare their pay to that of “mere” experts, even in the same field.

Scholes & Merton also joined a hedge fund that traded based on their models and cased a financial crash after the Russian bond default in 1998 which their models didn't take into account. Great example of a black swan event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

It's only a black swan event if you pay no attention to geopolitics, which unfortunately banking types don't, at least not beyond WSJ/FT headlines.

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

#72

Post by HenryKissinger »

scottlegrand2 wrote: post #56

7-figure salaries have been a thing for quite a while at Facebook, Google and definitely at hedge funds. Right now, you can make a half million a year or more if you're willing to optimize the low-level code in any of the major AI frameworks. If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. You don't have to be in the 0.001% just the top 5%. That's hard work but it's doable. The only thing…

> If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain.

How does it work in practice? Let's say I just published a major conference paper. Where do I apply for my million dollar job? Who do I reach out to?

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

#73

Post by puranjay »

opportune wrote: post #63
candiodari wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The problem with this field is that if you want to see what you'd have to do to be a star researcher in AI. You'd have to be top-10 amongst 20.000 or so machine learning PhDs. This is not a reasonable aspiration. Plus I would argue that although Ilya Sutskever did a ridiculous amount of effort and then got lucky, 2 two others were at best interested academics on the sidelines for most of their careers, then…

You also have to do a PhD, and make sure you get a good adviser/good department, and get lucky enough for nothing bad to happen to your adviser and department, and be very careful with how you spend your time (if you spend a lot of time on something that doesn't end up being fruitful, that's opportunity cost that other top researchers might have turned into a breakout publication and now you are behind). And you make…

The strangest thing is that knowing a lot of PhDs and PhD students (my wife is currently one), very few are motivated by financial rewards. Making money isn't always seen as a yardstick of success by their peers.

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

#74

Post by nharada »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #72
scottlegrand2 wrote: post #56

7-figure salaries have been a thing for quite a while at Facebook, Google and definitely at hedge funds. Right now, you can make a half million a year or more if you're willing to optimize the low-level code in any of the major AI frameworks. If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. You don't have to be in the 0.001% just the top 5%. That's hard work but it's doable. The only thing…

> If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. How does it work in practice? Let's say I just published a major conference paper. Where do I apply for my million dollar job? Who do I reach out to?

You don't know? Usually at NeurIPS and CVPR the applications are next to the tea and coffee they put out in the mornings. Not sure about ICML.

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

#75

Post by hollerith »

capnprotonmail wrote: post #70

I don't think OpenAI is a nonprofit as they are planning to commercially license their technologies. Ok, they limit investor returns at one-hundred times their initial investment, but I'd hardly call that a non-profit in the sense of the word.

Wikipedia says that "OpenAI is the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP, whose parent organization is the non-profit organization OpenAI Inc."

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

#76

Post by rat9988 »

xpe wrote: post #29
nefitty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Though harsh and (of course) generalized, I think the word "empty" is a useful description here. Think of these meanings of empty: - "containing nothing; not filled or occupied" - "lacking meaning or sincerity" - "having no value or purpose" In the context of academia, there is an expectation of a certain fundamental motivation; namely, to pursue knowledge in a particular field and share it back via writing and/or te…

>If one lacks that primary motivation, they certainly "lack" it and are "not filled" with the academic ethos. So "empty" is a fair term.

No idea why you think this. A phd has a contrat with a salary, starting and end dates.

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

#77

Post by Tossrock »

puranjay wrote: post #44
xenocyon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 employe…

Star *anything" is a path to millions. Star athletes and musicians are obvious examples, but even star jugglers or puppeteers probably make a killing. Very misleading article

Star jugglers do not make a killing, unfortunately. A man with a not unreasonable claim to "best juggler in the world" gave it up and became a concrete contractor. Salaries at Cirque start at $50k.

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

#79

Post by _delirium »

hollerith wrote: post #75
capnprotonmail wrote: post #70

I don't think OpenAI is a nonprofit as they are planning to commercially license their technologies. Ok, they limit investor returns at one-hundred times their initial investment, but I'd hardly call that a non-profit in the sense of the word.

Wikipedia says that "OpenAI is the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP, whose parent organization is the non-profit organization OpenAI Inc."

It's kind of a weird structure, but I think more like a company than like a nonprofit in the short/medium term. The parent is a nonprofit organization, but it's not the same arrangement as Mozilla Foundation vs. Mozilla Corporation, where all earnings from the subsidiary go to the parent nonprofit. With OpenAI, the parent nonprofit only gets earnings in excess of 100x return. The for-profit company raises investment and returns any earnings to the investors until/unless they hit the 100x return mark. They call this a "capped profit" structure.

When it was founded in 2015, OpenAI was originally a nonprofit, but restructured into this new arrangement earlier this year in order to be able to raise VC money: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/openai-shifts-from-nonprof...

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

#80

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

Tossrock wrote: post #77
puranjay wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star *anything" is a path to millions. Star athletes and musicians are obvious examples, but even star jugglers or puppeteers probably make a killing. Very misleading article

Star jugglers do not make a killing, unfortunately. A man with a not unreasonable claim to "best juggler in the world" gave it up and became a concrete contractor. Salaries at Cirque start at $50k.

https://www.macfound.org/fellows/403/
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