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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

#431

Post by xorcist »

elbear wrote: post #391
xorcist wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I most would like to understand is how you intend to motivate someone you just gave a quarter of a billion dollars to? Especially a young person. They never have to work again, and neither do their grandchildren. You can just doodle away with whatever research interests you the most, there's no need to deliver a god mode AI to the great leader even if you had the ability to.

Seems like their only motivation is their desire to succeed, glory, etc.

But that's the thing. These are hired people. Their job is to bring glory to the great leader. Exactly the same way Altman get the OpenAI fame.

If you really had thoughts in your head worth a quarter of a billion, the rational thing to do is not to spill those beans.

Approximately no one is motivated by money they already have.

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

#432

Post by croes »

apparent wrote: post #208

This is the result of the winner-take-all (most) economy. If the very best LLM is 1.5x as good as good as the next-best, then pretty much everyone in the world will want to use the best one. That means billions of dollars of profit hang in the balance, so companies want to make sure they get the very best people (even if they have to pay hundreds of millions to get it). It's the same reason that sports stars, musicia…

There is LLM 1.5x as good as the next best.

I tried multiple and they all fail and some point so I let another LLM take over.

As soon it’s not some boilerplate thing it becomes harder to get the correct result

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

#433

Post by thom »

Presumably this is a sign that Zuck has brought forward his estimate of (at least some significant step towards) AGI? Feels like we’re missing several novelties on that critical path. I would have thought you’d do better casting a wider, more diverse net if you have money to burn.

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

#434

Post by wyre »

HWR_14 wrote: post #339
mensetmanusman wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubble might not burst, if we can improve productivity in every field even 0.5%, that’s massive.

There is no guarantee that Meta or OpenAI would capture that increase in productivity as opposed to open models or otherwise driving the profits on the AI itself to zero.

As LLM's get smarter and more capable on smaller and smaller computers Anthropic, Google, Grok, OpenAI, and Meta (is there an acronym, like FAANG, for the giant AI companies? MOGGA? GOMAG?) will have to get creative with profit-drivers, when consumers will have a very capable LLM built-in to their computing device(s), and it can easily be worth the cost to a business to invest in the computing power to provide on-device LLM's to their workers.

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

#435

Post by scrollaway »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #381
siscia wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, do you have a better way to spend that money?

If it were me, yeah, park it in bonds and live off the interest on a tropical beach. Spend my days spearfishing and drinking beers with the locals. Have no concerns except how even my tan is (and tbh I don't see myself caring too much about that). I'd forget the word shareholder even exists.

What you’re suggesting does not at all require a lot of money.

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

#436

Post by simianwords »

saagarjha wrote: post #426
simianwords wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reinforces meritocracy. What’s the alternative?

Why not have the best person get all the money?

If he provides a good service he probably deserves it. Your next question is probably either “if one person has all the money, who has money remaining to spend” or “inequality is bad” (if you have given it more thought).

To either question the answer is: current monetary system doesn’t allow this to happen and inequality is okay as long as the floor is increasing for everyone (to an extent).

Zucc giving 1B to a relatively unknown researcher is the redistribution that people a should be in favour of. Just that it’s not redistribution to them.

The bigger picture is that this investment is towards furthering good LLM research which will again benefit everyone. This transaction seems to be good in all angles.

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

#437

Post by Voultapher »

Slightly fixed title: "One A.I. researcher is negotiating a $250M pay package in made up money that Meta can produce by typing zeros into a spreadsheet."

Paying with stock is a neat option for companies that are projected to grow - the very reason why all of big tech desperately wants to be perceived as growing - since it doesn't cost them anything, since they can dilute existing stock holdings at will by claiming the thing they are buying with new made up stock will make the company that much richer.

So you as a potential investor should ask yourself, will this one employee make Meta worth $255M more? Assuming they are paying $5M in cash and the rest in stock.

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

#439

Post by andyjensen »

naveen99 wrote: post #246
SamvitJ wrote: post #220

One way to make sense of this specific case at least. - He's on track to becoming a top-tier AI researcher. Despite having only one year of a PhD under his belt, he already received two top awards as a first-author at major AI conferences [1]. Typically, it takes many more years of experience to do research that receives this level of recognition. Most PhDs never get there. - Molmo, the slate of open vision-language…

Molmo caught my eye also a while ago.

Same except a bit longer ago than that, but otherwise I agree

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

#440

Post by groestl »

Filligree wrote: post #425
discreteevent wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like in an actual arms race In an actual arms race you use your arms to actually physically wipe out your enemy. It's not just like an arms race.

How sure do you feel about that?

Exactly, that's my point.
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