Here are five things to know about compensation for AI researchers.
1. Top AI researchers hired by private tech giants often receive compensation packages that reach into the millions. AI specialists with little industry experience still report making between $300,000 and $500,00 per year in salary and stock.
2. AI researchers pull impressive figures even in the nonprofit sector, as evidenced by a recent public tax filing by OpenAI, a research lab co-founded by Elon Musk. The nonprofit’s Co-Founder and Research Director Ilya Sutskever, PhD, made more than $1.9 million in 2016.
3. Dr. Sutskever, who was recruited to the nonprofit research lab from Google, told The New York Times “I turned down offers for multiple times the dollar amount I accepted at OpenAI … Others did the same.” He added he expects salaries at OpenAI to rise as the organization, which launched in 2015, grows.
4. High AI salaries are driven by a demand for AI talent, which is increasing at a much faster rate than the supply of AI researchers with appropriate skillsets. “There is a mountain of demand and a trickle of supply,” Chris Nicholson, the CEO and co-founder of AI startup Skymind, told The New York Times.
5. The competitive compensation landscape creates challenges for universities and governments, which need AI expertise for development and to train the next generation of AI researchers. These sectors have trouble recruiting talented researchers, since they’re unable to match the high salaries available to AI personnel in the private sector, according to The New York Times.
To access The New York Times‘ analysis, click here.
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