[InterviewFrog]

Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. The talent pool is extremely small and the companies want the absolute best.

It is the same thing in sports as well. There will only ever be one Michael Jordan one Lionel Messi one Tiger Woods one Magnus Carlsen. And they are paid a lot because they are worth it.

>> Meta seem to be spending so much so they don't later have to fight a war against an external Facebook-as-chatbot style competitor

Meta moved on from facebook a while back.It has been years since I last logged into facebook and hardly anybody I know actually post anything there. Its a relic of the past.

[klabb3]

> Here is the uncomfortable truth. Only a small group of people are capable of operating at an elite level. […] It is the same thing in sports as well.

It’s not just uncomfortable but might not be true at all. Sports is practically the opposite type of skills: easy to measure, known rules, enormous amount of repetition. Research is unknown. A researcher that guarantees result is not doing research. (Coincidentally, the increasing rewards in academia for incrementalist result driven work is a big factor in the declining overall quality, imo.)

I think what’s happening is kind of what happened in Wall Street. Those with a few documented successes got disproportionately more business based to a large part on initial conditions and timing.

Not to take away from AI researchers specifically, I’m sure they’re a smart bunch. But I see no reason to think they stand out against other academic fields.

Occam’s razor says it’s panic in the C-suites and they perceive it as an existential race. It’s not important whether it actually is, but rather that’s how they feel. And they have such enormous amount of cash that they’re willing to play many risky bets at the same time. One of them being to hire/poach the hottest names.

[TrackerFF]

Hot fucking take - but if these 100 (or whatever small number is being thrown around these days) elite researchers disappeared overnight, the world would go on and little of it would be noticed. New people in the field would catch up, and things would be up to speed quick enough.

It is not a question of exquisitely rare intellect, but rather the opportunity and funding/resources to prosper.

[rcxdude]

Hmmmm, I think only assuming those 100 have not been accurately identified. In pretty much all fields I am familiar with, the ability distribution seems to approximate a power law near the top: the gap between the best and the 20th best can be absolutely gigantic.

(And while there are certainly those who could have been the best who did not have the opportunity to succeed, or just didn't actually want to pursue it, I think usually this is way at the edges, i.e. removing the top would not make room for these people, because they're probably not even on anyone's radar at all, like the 'Einstein toiling in a field')

[p1esk]

You can say the same about any set of 100 people.

[jimmy2times]

Can you say the same about the top 100 basketball players?

[TrackerFF]

I think sports is even more susceptible to the influence of capital.

Athletes need the following:

- talent/potential - ability (talent that has been realized) - work ethic - luck (could be something as simple as avoiding injuries, supportive family / friends / guardians, etc.)

That will usually get you on the radar. You'll be identified by your coach, talent agents, etc.

Once you cross a certain threshold, usually by the time you've been picked out by talent agents / joined a youth academy, and signed for a sports club with the financial means, you get access to a whole infrastructure that has one goal, and one goal only: To unlock your full potential, and make you the best athlete you can be.

And it is not that unsimilar to how AI researchers are brought up. If you look at pretty much any of the top AI talent, they have the following pedigree:

Very gifted HS students that went to feeder schools / academies, and / or participated in some STEM Olympiad -> Prestigious universities or some top ranking schools in their field -> Well-funded and prestigious research group -> top internships and post-grad employment (or they dropped out to join/found a startup)

You could be the smartest researcher in the world, but if you're stuck at some dinky school with zero budget, and can't (or don't get the change to) relocate, you're going to be stuck at the B/C/D-league.

[saagarjha]

I think it would be about the same, to be honest. There is always someone who is 90% as good as Stephen Curry and we'll rescale our expectations to match.

[p1esk]

Absolutely. There are tons of young talented players who just need room to shine

[ofjcihen]

While I don’t doubt that these people have great experience and skills what they really have that others don’t is connections and the ability to market themselves well.

[p1esk]

All you need is to publish a couple of right papers and/or significantly contribute to a couple of right projects. If you have brains for that you’ll be noticed.