Greetings from a world where…
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Feature Translation: The End of the AI Salary Myth
Context: According to the 2022 edition of the Dice Tech Salary report, salaries in the U.S. for engineers in the machine learning, natural language processing, and AI categories declined between 2020 and 2021 — after experiencing record highs the previous three years. Using the Dice report as its jumping off point, this week’s Huxiu article examines the situation in China. The author is utada (宇多田, a pen name and a reference, I think, to the Japanese American singer-songwriter), who previously wrote one of my favorite articles that I’ve translated for ChinAI (#58 on making knives better).
Key takeaways:
Gap between demand and supply for AI talents in China is still large. According to estimates by Lagou, a talent recruitment platform, there is a total shortage of 1.7 million algorithmic engineers. In 2021, Lagou’s AI Talent Demand Index increased by 103% compared to the previous year (figure below)
But we need to differentiate by subdomain. Headhunters tell Huxiu that while autonomous driving salaries continued to skyrocket in 2021, other verticals such as voice and text recognition stabilized or even experienced downward trends.
What accounts for these trends, even as Chinese AI industry reports promoted an image of serious talent shortages? The article points to first-tier and second-tier universities installing AI labs, local vocational colleges opening AI courses, industry-university partnerships. “Even in the cram schools and online courses for primary and secondary schools, AI has become a compulsory and popular course.”
Is the boom in AI salaries over? Flashback to 2016. Investors were telling Huxiu in interviews that the top Chinese computer vision startups offer annual salaries of 3 million RMB to AI experts. The myth of “million-RMB AI salaries” may now come to an end in the next few years. And what’s the successor to this myth? The article points to semiconductor talent: “Now, there is a scramble for even fresh graduates of second-rate universities.”
FULL TRANSLATION: The End of the AI Salary Myth
ChinAI Links (Four to Forward)
Should-read: The China AI and Autonomy Report
The Center for Naval Analyses publishes the China AI and Autonomy Report, a biweekly newsletter that provides a very useful roundup of topics related to China’s AI development, including platform governance, the digital economy, artificial general intelligence, future warfare, etc. H/t to Greg Allen for sharing this with me.
Should-read: China Information Operations Newsletter
Edited by Hannah Bailey, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, the February 2022 newsletter covers information operations and developments in Hong Kong, digital surveillance, censorship, and nationalism. Great mix of news updates and links to academic articles that provide more background.
Should-read: What Most Get Wrong About the "AI Arms Race" | Machine Yearning 003
Ryan Cunningham, who works at Andrew Ng’s AI fund and publishes the Machine Yearning newsletter, wrote an incisive piece that builds on my seminar talk at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI. I especially like his concrete planks for encouraging the diffusion of AI in the U.S., with a focus on workforce upgrades, standardization, and synergies between open-source hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure.
Should-read: Ten Translations of Care
Ever since longform.org shut down its article recommendations service, I’ve started going to Longreads to get my fill of longform content. This week surfaced a 2018 article by Mary Wang for Longreads on how her and her family in China schemed to hide her grandma’s cancer diagnosis from her. A beautiful essay structured around ten different Chinese terms for “care.”
Thank you for reading and engaging.
These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, sponsored by Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Check out the archive of all past issues here & please subscribe here to support ChinAI under a Guardian/Wikipedia-style tipping model (everyone gets the same content but those who can pay for a subscription will support access for all).
Any suggestions or feedback? Let me know at chinainewsletter@gmail.com or on Twitter at @jjding99