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

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

#41

Post by m0zg » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #19

Serious question, is this value justified? I don't have any contact with AI development or AI researchers. Do they really bring that much value to the business? It makes sense that for Google, these positions would have almost unlimited clean data. But many companies are not Google.

How do you define "justified"? The field is so new, someone who really knows what they're doing could mean a difference between a large team spending years and getting nowhere remarkable, and improving state of the art every 6 months. With the same exact team. So would you rather get nothing for your money, or something valuable every 6-9 months? That's the question. These people are typically hired after trying pretty hard to get results out of generalists, and failing.

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

#42

Post by adambyrtek » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #30

mruts wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that’s pretty insulting, honestly. Black or Sholes were making >10m as thought leaders in banks. It’s surprising to me that finance is so passe as a career despite the fact, as Matt Levine said, “they are run as employee run co-ops.” In otherwords, big big money. Entry level analysts at my old firm were making over 250k total comp.

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

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

#43

Post by codingslave » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #23

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.

Yeah that’s pretty insulting, honestly. Black or Sholes were making >10m as thought leaders in banks. It’s surprising to me that finance is so passe as a career despite the fact, as Matt Levine said, “they are run as employee run co-ops.” In otherwords, big big money. Entry level analysts at my old firm were making over 250k total comp.

People in tech generally have no clue of how much money gets made in finance

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

#44

Post by puranjay » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

xenocyon wrote: post #40

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 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

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

#45

Post by ModernMech » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #37

Railsify wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

$200k in the bay area is like $90k where I'm from. It's a decent living, but if you've got a family it's not exactly upper class.

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

#46

Post by buboard » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #39

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.

This should work for all VC-funded companies and for the internet giants who can afford it. It's a form of wealth redistribution.

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

#47

Post by ryanSrich » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #45

jstummbillig wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

$200k in the bay area is like $90k where I'm from. It's a decent living, but if you've got a family it's not exactly upper class.

If you have a family it’s not possible. Home prices average close to $1m. You’d have to save an entire years salary PRE tax to afford the down payment. That will take years and years to save.

If you’re raising a family you’ll likely need two $200k incomes to afford a house, and even then, it’ll take at least 2 years to save for the down payment.

The Bay Area is for college kids and millionaires. That’s it.

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

#48

Post by sdenton4 » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

codingslave wrote: post #43

mruts wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that’s pretty insulting, honestly. Black or Sholes were making >10m as thought leaders in banks. It’s surprising to me that finance is so passe as a career despite the fact, as Matt Levine said, “they are run as employee run co-ops.” In otherwords, big big money. Entry level analysts at my old firm were making over 250k total comp.

People in tech generally have no clue of how much money gets made in finance

Just put your hand in the giant rushing river of money and see what sticks...

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

#49

Post by org3432 » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

codingslave wrote: post #14

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…

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.

That's the difference between working for a company vs. starting a company, the lower risk of being an employee comes at a high price unfortunately.

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

#50

Post by stochastic_monk » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #45

jstummbillig wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

$200k in the bay area is like $90k where I'm from. It's a decent living, but if you've got a family it's not exactly upper class.

Off-topic: Reminds me of "Half a mil in twenties like a billion where I'm from."

On-topic: that's misleading; once you pay fixed costs, you have a lot more latitude for discretionary income. Not everything is the same ratio more expensive in the Bay Area.