While governments and tech executives argue about AI's ability to spark global conflict, the people who actually work over this technology are busy fighting for wages.
The popularity of AI platforms like ChatGPT means that AI engineers could be demanding almost twice as much in 2023 as they did last year, according to job board Adzuna.
Even as well-known big tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs due to slowing demand and soaring costs, the recruitment of people with degrees in machine learning and computer science continues at full speed.
Companies large and small are scrambling to retain top AI talent, driving wages even higher as demand for skilled labor threatens to outstrip supply.
In one London ad, Amazon is offering up to $260,000 (£211,000) for a senior applied scientist specializing in generative artificial intelligence, the same technology that powers ChatGPT.
In San Francisco Google advertises a machine learning engineer. work with a base salary of up to $263,000, plus bonuses, promotions (stocks) and benefits.
If you have the right combination of skills and professional experience, you can get a high-paying position in the USA. and never have to worry about the price of bread again.
Average advertised salary for key AI professionals
Josh Brenner, chief executive of job-advisory firm Hired, says competition on both sides of the Atlantic results in «higher rewards for these professionals» as companies seek to find the best and brightest talent. .
“Despite the volatility in the tech industry, artificial intelligence and machine learning engineers, including those specializing in natural language processing, are still in high demand and, on average, receive higher salaries than regular software engineers,” he says.
Economic conditions played a big role in this gold rush. Despite persistently high inflation, optimistic investors have boosted the value of companies seen as having an edge in artificial intelligence and related industries.
The S&P 500 stock price index rose almost a full percentage point in one day. this week due to a positive update from Nvidia that uses computer circuitry to power AI.
The California-based company more than doubled its stock price to $380 this week after unexpectedly strong sales of its A100 and V100 chips optimized for artificial intelligence. As a result, the high-tech Nasdaq 100 rose 2.5 percent as a result, according to Bloomberg.
The AI industry is enjoying a golden moment with the launch of the public version. ChatGPT last year.
This, and the incredible capabilities of the chatbot, made the platform maker OpenAI a household name and opened the eyes of tech workers to the possibility of working with AI.
The impact on wages is clean. According to Adzuna, last April an artificial intelligence engineer in the UK could earn an average salary of just £48,159; by April 2023, that average had almost doubled to £82,860, and in March of this year, data scientists could command an average of around £70,000.
Meanwhile, machine learning engineers who offered around £60,500 last July, tempted by a £93,750 salary for the first three months of 2023, Adzuna found.
The launch of ChatGPT caused a surge in job applications, sources say, causing more pressure on salaries as recruiters struggled to attract the best candidates.
Hired's Brenner adds: «The average salary for machine engineers training in the UK is £92,000, which is about £83,000 for the average salary of a standard software engineer.”
0605 The impact of AI
Daniel Pell, vice president of HR software company Workday in the UK and Ireland, points out that some analysts predict that the UK AI market will be worth hundreds of billions of pounds by 2033.
Such success cannot be achieved if the industry attracts the best talent, Pell adds, but the best way to achieve this is not necessarily to attract the most qualified specialists from the outside.
“Moving to a skills-based approach can help business leaders avoid expensive recruiting,” says Pell.
However, on the other side of the fence, small companies struggle to stay competitive when faced with the deep pockets of big tech companies and other established industries.
Jan Wolter, Managing Director of Applause, a company that tests and trains artificial intelligence algorithms , says it's hard to find the right people with the right mix of skills.
«This is still a nascent field, and it's hard to determine if a candidate has the required experience in AI modeling and [machine learning],» Voltaire adds.
«It's more likely that someone has a background in data science than a pure AI background, so you need to hire for a skill set rather than a specific experience. So yes, recruiting is competitive, but also very selective.”
This additional AI pressure may not last forever. While programmers and programmers could very well be in the top 1% of Britons, those at the opposite end of the scale could be out of work instead.
In mid-May, BT said it was cutting about 10 000 jobs to be replaced by artificial intelligence, as part of a wider round of layoffs of 55,000 people. Industry sources suggest that whoever trains AI software to replace unemployed people may be creating the means for their own professional ruin.
Economists argue that the impact of AI on jobs will be twofold: wages for some jobs will drop to zero, their jobs will be taken over by machines, and the wages of others will skyrocket as the specialized skills needed to train AI become rarer.
Connor Axiotes of the Adam Smith Institute says that the ability of advanced AI to make its own decisions could mean that humans will be completely excluded from the labor market.
He says such developments «may make this technology extraordinarily likely to replace mental as well as physical labor, as the comparative advantage of human labor in mental capacity becomes less clear.»
As a result, people will have few «comparative advantages» over AI, «with which you can get a decent market wage» if the development of technology continues at its current pace, adds Axiotes.
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Legislators are starting to crack down on these ideas even as high salaries and the promise of a luxurious lifestyle continue to tempt top AI talent.
Meanwhile, governments are busy rolling out the red carpet for AI pioneers looking for top talent. Last year, the UK launched a fast-track visa scheme to help employers attract highly skilled technicians to the country.
The US H1-B Equivalent Visa Program allows US employers to import up to 85,000 «highly skilled workers». people a year, but companies that want to attract foreign artificial intelligence specialists to the US compete with other high-tech fields such as engineering.
Caroline DineNage, then secretary at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, said in 2021 that the Global Talent government's flagship visa route «will not limit the number of people who can come to the UK.»
There are some signs that the AI gold rush may be slowing down. down. Some recruiting industry sources, who asked not to be identified, suggest that average AI salaries may be declining as ChatGPT becomes more commonplace in everyday life.
Currently, a Ph.D. computer science or machine learning is undoubtedly relevant. path to a high salary and an easy lifestyle, even if it comes at the expense of their co-workers' roles.
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