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A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very major difference is that top athletes bring in real tangible money via ticket / merch sales and sponsorships, whereas top AI researchers bring in pseudo-money via investor speculation. The AI money is far more likely to vanish.

It's best to look at this as expected value. A top AI research has the potential to bring in a lot more $$ than a top athlete, but of course there is a big risk factor on top of that.

If you imagine hard enough, you can expect anything. e.g. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#142
post #97
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we’d need a major war or a pandemic of sorts because we have become pretty good at maintaining such bubble inflated. Whenever and however it comes, it’s going to be a bloodbath because we haven’t had a proper burst since 2008. I don’t count 2020.

Eventually people might consider that just maybe... it's not a bubble...

There is definitely a bubble though. Tesla has 28 times larger market cap than other well-run competitors, for example, and there's a bunch of other firms with similarly crazy numbers.

AI is great and it's the future, and a bunch of people will probably eventually turn it into very powerful systems able to solve industrially important maths and software development problems, but that doesn't meant they'll make huge money from that.

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#143

I take this as a contrarian signal that Meta has hit serious roadblocks improving their AI despite massive data advantages and are throwing a bunch of "Hail Mary" desperation passes to achieve meaningful further progress.

> I take this as a contrarian signal that Meta has hit serious roadblocks improving their AI despite massive data advantages

Just a thought:

Assuming that Meta's AI is actually good. Could it rather be that having access to a massive amount of data does not bring that much of a business value (in this case particularly for training AIs)?

Evidence for my hypothesis: if you want to gain a deep knowledge about some complicated specific scientific topic, you typically don't want to read a lot of shallow texts tangentially related to this topic, but the few breakthrough papers and books of the smartest mind who moved the state of art in the respective area. Or some of the few survey monographs of also highly smart people who work in the respective area who have a vast overview about how these deep research breakthroughs fit into the grander scheme of things.

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#144

These figures are for a very small number of potential people. This leaves out that frontier AI is being developed by an incredibly small number of extremely smart people who have migrated between big tech, frontier AI, and others. Yes, the figures are nuts. But compare them to F1 or soccer salaries for top athletes. A single big name can drive billions in that context at least, and much more in the context of AI. $5…

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Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#145

How can I get one of these jobs? I am currently an OK web dev.

Get a PhD in a related field like math or computer science.

That is unfortunately far from enough. The majority end up doing ok but nowhere near this much money.

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#147

These figures are for a very small number of potential people. This leaves out that frontier AI is being developed by an incredibly small number of extremely smart people who have migrated between big tech, frontier AI, and others. Yes, the figures are nuts. But compare them to F1 or soccer salaries for top athletes. A single big name can drive billions in that context at least, and much more in the context of AI. $5…

It’s just a matter of taste, but I am pleased to see publicity on people with compensation packages that greatly exceed actors and athletes. It’s about time the nerds got some recognition. My hope is that researchers get the level of celebrity that they deserve and inspire young people to put their minds to building great things.

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#149

How can I get one of these jobs? I am currently an OK web dev.

These are not just people with credentials, but are literally some of the smartest people on earth. Us normal people cannot and should not think we were just a few decisions away from being there.

Re: A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages

#150
post #121

When will the bubble pop?

That's a lot of confidence that this is a bubble rather than an existential race. Maybe you're making bank betting that view?

Not sure what you mean but if I was to invest I would have invested years ago in NVIDIA.
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