Probably people who studied AI in Computer Science programs at UofT and American schools as well as domestic universities, who then proceed to apply said knowledge in new science and applications of AI at (Chinese) universities and firms. E.g. the guy that creates, adapts or integrates an AI model to drive a mining truck for rare earth minerals to free up human labour for other purposes. Or the person that came up with storing LLM context as image data in order to increase DeepSeek’s context window by 10x on the same hardware.
AI research is very complex and includes several fields, like AI programming experts, linguistic experts, neuro scientists and philosophy. These people are highly specialized in their field, and it is a field of scientific study. Scientific AI research today is a combination of several scientific fields.
That’s fair, but are you sure the top line number cited in the article reflects your definition? Maybe it does, I don’t know.
I am also sceptical of the the inclusion of philosophers and neuro scientists in your list of fields. I would speculate employment of such specialists represents an infinitely tiny portion of total employment in AI/ML industry (however you define that).
I am happy to be proven wrong. The topic of employment dynamics in AI/ML is not an area I am familiar with
No idea. He’s probably just talking about the production of people with such education. That said, the field of AI R&D is enormous. There are so many opportunities for productivity improvements in healthcare, manufacturing, farming, chemicals, etc. The more AI-trained specialists you got, the more of those you can attempt. If a country has a goal of increasing economic productivity which doesn’t always jive with the free market economy.
There are so many opportunities for productivity improvements in healthcare, manufacturing, farming, chemicals, etc.
That’s definitely true. There is a lot of potential here. That being said, like with all tech, it’s about the people that apply it.
The more AI-trained specialists you got, the more of those you can attempt.
Not sure I believe this is true in all cases. It is not too unreasonable that there is a decrease in marginal returns on “AI-trained specialists” as the number goes up.
And it is likely that a large number of said “AI-trained specialists” are probably looking to cash in while this option is available.
I am a regular user of a variety of AI/ML tech (not only LLMs, although I do use them a lot in a relatively cautious manner), so I am not really an “AI skeptic”.
I am skeptic of the individuals involved in the AI/ML industry because I know what money can do to people. Not to mention claims/polemics about “millions of AI specialists working diligently to improve the world” have an almost Lenin/Mao-style feel to it.
Some people in this industry might have a measure of idealism, but they are likely a small minority. Most are probably just conformists and just doing whatever, but also not necessarily opposed to criminality or idealism depending on how it is marketed. A not inconsequential portion are committed criminals and will pivot to the “next big thing” that becomes popular for “white collar” criminal groups.
I have a little bit of exposure to the points I am bringing up, so I may be generalizing, but it’s not like I am just making stuff up.
Oh I’m not at all assigning a universally positive morals to the hypothetical researchers or idealism. I think people would do more or less what their reality pushes them to do. In a reality where studying AI leads to the shortest path from working class to early retirement, I expect people to do what that industry does. AI slop generators for example at untold socioeconomic cost. In a different reality where AI is just another research field, like material science, where studying it does not allow for getting rich quick but leads to careers in automation in various other fields, I expect people interested in it to do that. Just like they do in many other fields of research and development. In this sense someone with high degree of state control over private capital and economic planning could do things differrently than what we observe the market doing in the US. I’m not saying that’s what they would do for sure and that things would be amazingly great. The Chinese have stated they are planning to go this route though.
Probably people who studied AI in Computer Science programs at UofT and American schools as well as domestic universities, who then proceed to apply said knowledge in new science and applications of AI at (Chinese) universities and firms. E.g. the guy that creates, adapts or integrates an AI model to drive a mining truck for rare earth minerals to free up human labour for other purposes. Or the person that came up with storing LLM context as image data in order to increase DeepSeek’s context window by 10x on the same hardware.
Out of the total population of “AI researchers” (as cited in the article), what percentage of them are engaged in research?
Or do we assume every single technical (we’ll exclude sales and market) person involved in AI/ML industries is a researcher?
AI research is very complex and includes several fields, like AI programming experts, linguistic experts, neuro scientists and philosophy. These people are highly specialized in their field, and it is a field of scientific study. Scientific AI research today is a combination of several scientific fields.
That’s fair, but are you sure the top line number cited in the article reflects your definition? Maybe it does, I don’t know.
I am also sceptical of the the inclusion of philosophers and neuro scientists in your list of fields. I would speculate employment of such specialists represents an infinitely tiny portion of total employment in AI/ML industry (however you define that).
I am happy to be proven wrong. The topic of employment dynamics in AI/ML is not an area I am familiar with
No idea. He’s probably just talking about the production of people with such education. That said, the field of AI R&D is enormous. There are so many opportunities for productivity improvements in healthcare, manufacturing, farming, chemicals, etc. The more AI-trained specialists you got, the more of those you can attempt. If a country has a goal of increasing economic productivity which doesn’t always jive with the free market economy.
That’s definitely true. There is a lot of potential here. That being said, like with all tech, it’s about the people that apply it.
Not sure I believe this is true in all cases. It is not too unreasonable that there is a decrease in marginal returns on “AI-trained specialists” as the number goes up.
And it is likely that a large number of said “AI-trained specialists” are probably looking to cash in while this option is available.
I am a regular user of a variety of AI/ML tech (not only LLMs, although I do use them a lot in a relatively cautious manner), so I am not really an “AI skeptic”.
I am skeptic of the individuals involved in the AI/ML industry because I know what money can do to people. Not to mention claims/polemics about “millions of AI specialists working diligently to improve the world” have an almost Lenin/Mao-style feel to it.
Some people in this industry might have a measure of idealism, but they are likely a small minority. Most are probably just conformists and just doing whatever, but also not necessarily opposed to criminality or idealism depending on how it is marketed. A not inconsequential portion are committed criminals and will pivot to the “next big thing” that becomes popular for “white collar” criminal groups.
I have a little bit of exposure to the points I am bringing up, so I may be generalizing, but it’s not like I am just making stuff up.
Oh I’m not at all assigning a universally positive morals to the hypothetical researchers or idealism. I think people would do more or less what their reality pushes them to do. In a reality where studying AI leads to the shortest path from working class to early retirement, I expect people to do what that industry does. AI slop generators for example at untold socioeconomic cost. In a different reality where AI is just another research field, like material science, where studying it does not allow for getting rich quick but leads to careers in automation in various other fields, I expect people interested in it to do that. Just like they do in many other fields of research and development. In this sense someone with high degree of state control over private capital and economic planning could do things differrently than what we observe the market doing in the US. I’m not saying that’s what they would do for sure and that things would be amazingly great. The Chinese have stated they are planning to go this route though.