Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 176 posts

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

#101

Post by DoreenMichele »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #98
DoreenMichele wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It's a one time grant that seems to be given sort of randomly, by which I mean I don't believe people apply for it. You just kind of get surprised one day to learn that these folks think you are spiffy.

Good for him, but I really don't see that as a rebuttal to "wages are so low for this occupation that people really good at this choose to do other things as a job." It's a bit like saying "Well, just do what you love anyway! You could totes win the lottery as a way to keep a roof over your head!"

Well, kudos to the lottery winners! But most folks would like a paycheck they can kind of count on that covers their needs reasonably adequately without hoping for a windfall out of the blue as the solution to their problems.

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

#102

Post by ineedasername »

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?

I wouldn't make a Ph.D program decision based solely or even primarily based on potential salary. Aptitude and, especially, personal interest should be a stronger guide. AI will likely turn out to be as data science was 7 or 8 years ago: In demand, for now. Then, the market will be flooded and salaries will drop to the average rates for qualified professionals of a given level of credentials & experience.

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

#103

Post by toast0 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #62
toast0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% down is a rule of thumb, and a requirement to avoid mortgage insurance, but it is not a requirement for lending. My credit union will do loans of up to 95% loan to value for $1.5M to first time homeowners or 90% loan to value up to $1.5M if you don't meet the first time qualifications. [1] I'm sure other volume lenders in the bay area have similar lending standards and programs. [1] https://www.starone.org/first-…

It's a financial mistake to not put 20% down. Not only are you hit with $500+/month in PMI, you have almost negative equity into the house when you buy it. Meaning if you have to sell on short notice you're either completely underwater having to pay back cap gains, or you're just breaking even. That's not an ideal situation and if you don't understand the mechanics going in, you'll find yourself in a world of hurt in…

Sure, PMI costs money. If it gets you off of the housing inflation train years earlier than waiting, it might be worth it. If housing prices go down after you finance with PMI, it might not have been worthwhile, but it's hard to know what's going to happen.

It's worth at least looking down the path, and considering the details of your current situation, and not just not considering purchasing at all because you only have 10%, 15%, 18%, or whatever that isn't 20%.

I don't understand how you can be 'underwater' but yet have capital gains. Certainly, selling a house is expensive, and if you put down only 5%, the loan balance could be more than your net sales price.

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

#104

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #101
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It's a one time grant that seems to be given sort of randomly, by which I mean I don't believe people apply for it. You just kind of get surprised one day to learn that these folks think you are spiffy. Good for him, but I really don't see that as a rebuttal to "wages are so low for this occupation that people really good at this choose to do other things as a job." It's a bit like saying "Well, just do what you love…

The whole thread is specifically about lottery winners. This is an example of such a thing happening due to juggling skill. It refutes the idea there are no such examples that result from juggling skill.

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

#105

Post by scottlegrand2 »

aledalgrande wrote: post #25

I think this article just reeks of jealousy. What is wrong with paying people doing top research a top salary? Their skills are extremely rare. And I bet executives get way more anyway.

What's amazing to me is the same people who write articles like this don't blink at the salaries in Hollywood. A top-tier performer can get over a hundred million dollars per movie. A bottom-tier character actor or below the line talent barely gets by.

The difference in compensation here is nowhere near as bad as what happens in Hollywood.

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

#108

Post by dwrodri »

drumttocs8 wrote: post #65

Is it worth putting the time into learning AI/ML at this point? Sure, crazy high salaries- but it seems inevitable that these are the very jobs that will be automated away first.

The crazy high salaries are "ideally" going to the ones who have both the soft skills and the technical prowess to automate away other people's jobs, not their own. This is one of the reasons STEM PhDs have become so attractive to industry--getting a PhD (especially from a good school) is a certification that the individual is capable of producing previously undocumented methods for replacing other people's jobs.

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

#109

Post by TheCoelacanth »

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?

Given that even the second highest paid researcher at the organization doesn't make that much, I'm guessing not very easily replicable.

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

#110

Post by DoreenMichele »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #104
DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a one time grant that seems to be given sort of randomly, by which I mean I don't believe people apply for it. You just kind of get surprised one day to learn that these folks think you are spiffy. Good for him, but I really don't see that as a rebuttal to "wages are so low for this occupation that people really good at this choose to do other things as a job." It's a bit like saying "Well, just do what you love…

The whole thread is specifically about lottery winners. This is an example of such a thing happening due to juggling skill. It refutes the idea there are no such examples that result from juggling skill.

Only in the sense that Paul Graham talks about successful startups "doing everything right and winning the lottery." There is a certain amount of luck in anything, but being a statistical outlier for income isn't the same as "winning the lottery," which is basically random chance.

And the reason it matters is because earned income encourages people to develop useful skills that the world desires (so as to presumably make the world a better place). Telling people they can actually make bank at X if they keep applying themselves is telling people "You don't have to be a pie-in-the-sky idealist to make the world a better place. You can do things the world actually values, be really good at them and get paid excellent money, so: win/win!"

The Nobel Prize and even MacArthur grant are intended to reward people after the fact for making the world a better place. Part of the point is to empower them to keep doing what they believe in and not give up and go do something else for pay that would be less beneficial to the world at large.

It may help encourage some folks to keep at the thing they believe in despite the low pay, but it's not a plan you can take to your accountant for how you will make your retirement work: "I'll just be amazingly good and then get a random windfall. It's Fine!"

I'm a freelance writer. Like a lot of writers, I work for peanuts.

I don't expect to be the next JK Rowling, but I can learn from her (she rewrote the first chapter of the first book like twenty times) and I've applied myself and gotten better. My pay has been gradually going up.

Because of how publishing works, JK Rowling's financial success is somewhere between salary of a million annually and random grant out of the blue. Plenty of people think writers must be nuts because most writing pays so poorly. (I have been repeatedly told to "get a real job" if I don't like being poor.)

But there's still a difference between that and your "win the lottery" framing for this discussion. It's really not the same thing.

Post reply on HN