Artificial intelligence experts can command huge salaries and bonuses--even at a nonprofit.
OpenAI, a nonprofit research lab started by Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk released the salary details of it"s employees--and they are striking. The organization"s top researcher was paid more than $1.9 million in 2016, and another leading researcher who was only recruited in March was paid $800,000 that year, according to a recent article in the New York Times.
Salaries for top A.I. researchers have skyrocketed because there is high demand for the skills--thousands of companies want to work with the technology--and few people have them. So even researchers at a nonprofit can make big money.
It likely has more to do with competition than interest in the field itself, however. The Times points out that both of the researchers employed by OpenAI used to work at Google. At DeepMind, a Google-owned A.I. lab in London, $138 million was spent on the salaries of 400 employees, translating to $345,000 per employee including researchers and other staff, the Times reports.
OpenAI was started by Musk who recruited several engineers from Google and Facebook, two companies pushing the industry into artificial intelligence. People who work at major companies told the Times that while top names can expect compensation packages in the millions, even A.I. specialists with no industry experience can expect to make between $300,000 and $500,000 in salary and stock as demand for the skills continues to outstrip supply.
No comments:
Post a Comment