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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

#91

Post by xpe »

rat9988 wrote: post #76
xpe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: "No idea why you think this."

My comment above makes an argument. You don't have to agree with it, but it should give you some idea about how I came to my conclusion.

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

#93

Post by jseliger »

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…

Nonprofits are more like businesses than people realize: https://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-... and they pay market rates. Maybe some people will accept someone less for the sake of working at a nonprofit but very few people will accept substantial paycuts over the long term

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

#94

Post by scottlegrand2 »

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?

The first thing you need to do is convince yourself you're worth that kind of money. Then when they ask you how much money you want during a job interview start talking about your peers in the industry making that kind of money. Finally make sure you're talking to multiple potential employers so you can play them against each other. Elon Musk gave that money to Ilya Sutskever because Google was probably paying him at least $1.5 million. Even if not, his share from the $60M DNNResearch acquhire (that's what got the whole ball rolling here) was probably worth far more than that.

Sadly, you're really only worth what you can convince another person to believe you're worth. But then the USA is suffering through someone convincing an electoral majority of Americans he was the best and only choice to lead the country and that's just working out splendidly right?

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

#95

Post by scottlegrand2 »

nharada wrote: post #83
HenryKissinger wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not know about these conferences. I googled the first one and found a headline about how tickets sold out in minutes. Is this why? Because everyone attending hopes to get a 6 figures job?

I'm being facetious, this is not at all true. At my company, we typically look for multiple major publications and you certainly don't get a million dollar job out of it.

Then the people who come to your company could probably do better elsewhere if money is all they care about. You work at Cruise am I right? I know someone personally who worked at Cruise who was making 7 figures. That sort of compensation is just not that unusual anymore.

But I've learned that money isn't everything the hard way. However, if you're whining about being underpaid, there's something you can do about it. There are plenty of solid reasons not to however especially if you enjoy your current gig and they're paying you sufficiently that you have a promising future. Money truly isn't everything.

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

#96

Post by throwawayjava »

mjn wrote: post #87
alphagrep12345 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a couple of questions - - Would you say that you'd have got an AI researcher position without a Ph.D.? - Also, why is NEURIPS or ICML papers is not a hiring guarantee? I thought they're highly sought after.

> Also, why is NEURIPS or ICML papers is not a hiring guarantee? I thought they're highly sought after. They're sought after, but the conferences have also grown huge. NeurIPS 2018 accepted around 1,000 papers! Based on a query of the DBLP [1] dataset, there were 4,409 distinct authors who had a paper at either NeurIPS 2018 or ICML 2018 (or both). If you add in a few of the other big AI and ML conferences (AAAI, IJCA…

A Ph.D.'s worth of first authored NeurIPS/ICML papers will get you a very good job pretty easily still. But AI slices papers very thin and author lists are inflated relative to other subfields of CS. A single paper in one of the major conferences is a pretty marginal contribution, especially if you're in the middle of a long author list.

Also, NeurIPS reviewing has gone to absolute hell. I mean, peer review everywhere has problems. But I've never seen something quite this bad. At this point I think it's safe to say that most reviewers wouldn't even make it to an on-site interview for a faculty position at a research university. That's definitely nowhere near normal. You can't really blame anyone, I guess; the community is growing way too quickly for any real quality control.

Frankly, I think those conferences have outlived their usefulness as anything except marquee marketing events. I'm now mostly attending smaller and more specialized conferences.

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

#97

Post by scottlegrand2 »

ttlei wrote: post #86
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…

Did i read that right? 120mils a year?!!!

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...

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

#98

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #89
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Correct me if I'm wrong: I believe that's a one-time award of $500,000, not "millions."

Actually you are incorrect. Moschen won the grant in 1990. Adjusting for inflation, that is just over a million dollars in 2019.

Even despite this, your comment strongly indicates taking a rather pedantic position. If you are suggesting that the mere amount of the grant somehow counters the spirit of the discussion, I’d say that’s extremely incorrect and a strict adherence to some threshold like “millions” would be totally missing the point.

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

#99

Post by opportune »

nostrademons wrote: post #88
opportune wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you truly don't have the money for the down payment, the math of mortgage+insurance+property taxes+pmi+deductions might still work out to be in your favor over renting

It's pretty unlikely in the Bay Area. There are fairly large distortions in the local market (because of Prop 13, zoning, wealth inequality, and small home supply in general) that usually make renting significantly more affordable than buying in general. See eg. this $1.9M home (estimated payment $9000/month, not including PMI) vs. this $4900/month equivalent: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/910-San-Marcos-Cir-Mou…

Oh, for the bay area, absolutely.

I will say though, might not make the most sense to pick a house in Mountain View as an example. For a couple just starting out in the South Bay that don't have two high earners and want to own a house, Fremont/Union City/Milpitas/San Jose are more realistic.

Also because of prop 13, it can make sense to lose money on buying vs. renting in the short term if you anticipate staying somewhere for a long time, because of the potentially huge property tax savings. And for basically the same reason it can make sense to lock in a mortgage payment that doesn't look like a great deal on paper in the short term.

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