The latest trench in the artificial intelligence war, then, is a fight both for the meanest AI around and for the brightest people to make it even nastier.
OpenAI, Google, and Elon Musk’s xAI are locked in an intense battle to scoop up the world’s best A.I. researchers in a quest to push the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) forward—a war being fought with million-dollar pay packages and the potential for significant control over the fate of A.I.
Growing demand of AI talent In light of the launch of ChatGPT in the lab earlier in 2022, we’re willing to see the soaring requirement of talented AI researchers, which have become some super covered cabinets of AI companies.
So-called “individual contributors” like these have the rare and potent power to make, or break, a company’s AI aspirations. Their talent is so rare — the most widely cited estimates are of a few dozen to, at best, a few thousand such people in the world — that it has unleashed an unprecedented talent war.
I am hearing that the amounts involved are colossal. OpenAI top researchers are said to have been offered hundreds of millions in bonuses and tens of millions in equity to get them not to join other firms.
Likewise, Google DeepMind is reportedly paying out annual comp that hits $20 million and features special equity grating and accelerated stock vesting. Even the regular top tech engineers who don’t make as much are also seeing a premium on that AI experience.
The man himself Elon Musk is also said to be “deep” into the hiring for xAI, making personal pitches to potential recruits.
The competition has grown so heated that visiting researchers interviewing for jobs have been wooed with private jet charters and exclusive social outings with tech luminaries.
But the war for talent isn’t just about the bottom line. Noam Brown, another researcher playing a critical role in OpenAI’s attempts to solve hard reasoning problems made the decision to stay at OpenAI, in spite of likely larger offers elsewhere, because “they will give me whatever resources I need, in terms of compute and team” to help him succeed in his effort.
This suggests that despite compensation, the ability to pursue meaningful research and have a strong influence is an important aspect in a researcher’s decision process.
Not only that, but high-profile departures, such as Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI who left to found an AI company of her own and recruit from OpenAI, have driven the talent arms race to even greater heights.
The shifting of experts illustrates the shifting sands of the AI research field and the continuing battle companies have to both hire and keep their-top-performing employees.
New ways to recruit talent are also coming to light. “Moneyball”-style scouting techniques have been employed by companies like the data science firm Zeki Data to find promising AI talent that may be lurking under the radar for now.
And this means that in the search for expertise, the obvious candidates are not the only ones we should offer up.
This fierce battle for AI research talent highlights the vital role that these Boffins play in realizing the next round of AI breakthroughs. And authors like OpenAI, Google, xAI, and others won’t stop seeking out the cutting edge in AI research For the researchers who have the vision and skills to lead the charge, they will be the most valuable technological resource in this arms race for a while to come.
Being able to pull and train this scarce talent will probably determine who eventually wins in the fast-changing AI world.