
Keeping Top AI Talent in the United States [pdf] - jstrieb
https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Keeping-Top-AI-Talent-in-the-United-States.pdf
======
jstrieb
Here is a summary of key results by the primary author:
[https://twitter.com/r_zwetsloot/status/1206989954984894464](https://twitter.com/r_zwetsloot/status/1206989954984894464)

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks for the link. This surprised me: “These high retention rates are
important, because a large majority (about 2/3) of grad students getting
trained in AI-related programs at US universities are not American citizens”

The current situation of making it difficult for recent graduates to get green
cards could put pressure on retention (having students staying in the US). At
my last job I tried for about a year to replace a deep learning engineer after
someone on my team left for a dream job.

Currently many white collar jobs (like Wall Street analysts) are getting
eliminated by deep learning and other models automation. I predict that it
will be 5 to 7 years before most routine deep learning development will be
largely automated, but until we achieve this, it is really important to have
trained people to do the work. That said, top level AI research will not be
automated in the near future.

~~~
bigred100
Is any sizable portion of these jobs interchangeable with deep learning?

The best deep learning engineers with infinite hardware built Amazon’s
recommendation algorithm, and it’s largely trash. I can’t imagine it’s
magically thousands of times more capable for these other tasks.

~~~
wenc
> built Amazon’s recommendation algorithm, and it’s largely trash

What is trash for you may not actually be reflective of how good the algorithm
is. My experience is that Amazon's algorithm actually works somewhat well.

Recommendation algorithms usually work well for people who are closer to
average (i.e. their preferences being closer to the aggregate). People who
deviate from the average tend to get poorer recommendations. It does even
worse for segments that deviate so far from average where there are few sample
points.

Recommendation algorithms optimize for aggregate conversion -- if it can get
the most number of people to convert, it is good (for the merchant) even if it
looks like your personal recommendations suck. It's all a matter of
perspective on what "good" is.

------
geebee
Another recommendation: "Automatically grant green cards to postgraduate
degree holders."

This idea may have some merit, but I want to be very blunt about this - PhD
programs aren't doing a good job attracting and retaining good students, at
least not the ones who aren't bound by US residency and work rights in their
choice about what sort of degree to pursue. Elite Law and Medical schools
typically have an attrition rate of below one half of one percent, <0.5%. For
PhD programs, it's typically 35%-50%, and while there's less data for MS
programs, we're still looking at 25%. Sorry no cite, I documented this a few
times in comments, I may go back and get it later.

On a personal level, I was a doctoral student in an engineering program at
Berkeley, and I will say with full confidence they couldn't give less of a
fuck if a student fails to get the degree. I don't swear on HN much, and if
you look at my history, I hope you'll see I don't like to troll. But in this
case, I'll repeat it, they could. not. give. a. fuck.

Give these people power to bestow the right to reside in the US, and I assure
you, the'll give even less of a fuck if anyone is happy in their program, or
if their PhD or even MS programs are competitive with MBA, Law, Medicine, and
other programs that require attracting and retaining people who already have
the right to live and work in the US.

~~~
majos
JDs and MDs are not the same as PhDs. The first two are important credentials.
A career as a doctor or lawyer is going to be hard without them. But you can
certainly have a research career without a PhD, or do something research-
adjacent and make more money. Lawyers and doctors don’t seem to have the same
incentives.

~~~
geebee
So then why are we supposed to be worried specifically about the pipeline of
PHDs? Why would we make a special point to grant automatic green cards to
degrees that aren’t really necessary?

~~~
majos
I’m not arguing that a PhD is a meaningless credential, rather that the drop-
off in employability (for most things that aren’t faculty jobs) from “PhD
holder” to “dropped out after quals, but did some research and can code” is
much smaller than the drop off between “MD” and “dropped out of med school,
but knows some medicine”. So the gap in attrition rates isn’t solely a
function of a better or worse experience.

I still think it’s good to try to keep people who get PhDs, especially in
areas I think are important, like machine learning research.

But I agree that making a PhD an even more useful credential is unlikely to
increase the quality of the PhD experience itself.

~~~
geebee
i think that if you give PhD programs the power to grant green cards, they’ll
become even more abusive. So abusive, in fact, that the only real reason to
put up with them is because they control your hopes of getting a green card.

I an in favor of immigration. I am not in favor of giving PhD programs power
over the system so they can remain uncompetitive with the options free people
have when choosing a degree or path in life.

------
atlasunshrugged
I agree that keeping top AI talent (along with several other key sectors) in
the US is absolutely critical to maintain America's superpower status long
term. It seems to me that the US became a power and remained one for so long
in no small part because of the opportunities provided to foreigners here and
being a 'nation of immigrants' which attracted the best and brightest from
abroad to contribute to the economy, defense, and more. I was lucky enough to
have been born in the US so I've got no need to go through the visa process
but hearing from friends and colleagues, it sounds like an absolute nightmare.
Still, the US could get away with it because we were the place everyone wanted
to be - now with our difficulties in healthcare, declining infrastructure,
violence issues (perceived or real, especially around guns), and low education
standards paired with many EU nations being very attractive and welcoming, I
think we need to dramatically step up our work trying to be competitive
attracting talent.

------
thorwasdfasdf
What's wrong with developing AI talent within the US? It doesn't necessarily
have to come from other countries. The US has over 300 million citizens and
your telling me they're all too dumb to learn AI? Even, if just 10% could
become AI specialists, I think that would be several orders of magnitude more
then enough. Just teach it in high school, and develop some college majors
that specialize in AI.

I think we have general tendency to underestimate what hard working people are
capable of. All we need to do is guide them in the right direction and make
sure the majors required are available.

~~~
Darkphibre
>In fact, international students are responsible for basically _all_ growth in
AI-related grad programs at US universities in the past decades.

>Or, in other words: there were as many American citizens getting CS/EE grad
degrees in 2016 as there were in 1990.

The push for STEM has been incessant for extremely real concerns. Our
population is just. not. entering. the STEM graduate courses. Yes, this needs
to change, but it's a cultural problem, not an availability problem.

~~~
jjoonathan
A cultural problem? No, it's an economic/policy problem. PhDs are effectively
being compensated with green cards instead of money. This compensation package
is much more attractive to foreign students for obvious reasons.

I'll never forget the day in lab meeting when it came out that I was a US
citizen. I thought my accent and appearance would have made it obvious, but
evidently my coworkers had assumed otherwise, and the response was an
astonished "Then what the hell are you still doing in academia?" followed by
looks of pity when I admitted to loving research. This was a biomedical lab at
Carnegie Mellon about a decade ago and I was the only one doing ML work, so
their astonishment was in part due to an underestimation of the market value
of my degree, but on the other hand their intuition was likely accurate with
regard to the STEM PhD market outside of AI.

Those PhDs are worth $pittance + green card, but not worth $pittance.

~~~
datlife
As recent grad student, I can relate this comment. Unless the school provides
competitive compensation to attract US citizens to pursue PhD, it does not
make sense _economically_ for a US citizen to not enter industry instead.

I trippled my compensation by deciding to work in industry.

------
geebee
"Objective labor market indicators and expert assessments suggest demand for
AI talent will far outstrip supply for the foresee- able future."

Ok, at what salary?

At minimum wage, lots of demand, not much supply. At $500-$750k a year, lots
of supply, considerably less demand.

------
rb808
Its kinda weird that the main reason that US grad schools are so good is that
its full of international students who have to be there to get green cards.
Its a symbiotic relationship. Take away the opportunity or desire to immigrate
and no one needs a MS/PhD any more.

~~~
enitihas
Does a MS from US help in getting green card?

~~~
filoleg
Yes, because H1B applications for those with advanced degrees (which includes
MS) are in a higher priority pool than those with just BS, so their
application gets processed much faster.

US essentially has an H1B visa quota of 85k per year, with 65k being the
regular pool and 20k being the advanced degree pool. It is always advantageous
to file for the advanced pool if you can, because if the quota for the
advanced degrees got filled for the year, the spillover people (i.e., the ones
with advanced degrees who didn't get their visa approved yet) get put in the
regular pool for that specific year.

~~~
woodson
Wrong: There is no advanced degree pool. There is a "has a degree from some
U.S. tertiary institution" pool. Doesn't matter how many Ph.D.s awarded by top
universities in the rest of the world one has.

~~~
mikeyouse
Random website, but just an example since many refer to the "Advanced Degree
Annual Cap" as a separate pool from the normal H1B:

[https://redbus2us.com/all-about-h1b-visa-cap-basics-
regular-...](https://redbus2us.com/all-about-h1b-visa-cap-basics-regular-vs-
masters-quotas-calculations-lottery/)

~~~
woodson
From your linked site:

“A person who has obtained a U.S. Master’s degree or higher qualifies for this
cap quota.”

A foreign advanced degree doesn’t qualify.

~~~
mikeyouse
Oops, mea culpa, read OP as disputing whether there was any preference for
advanced degree, not whether only US ones counted.

------
killjoywashere
Despite the hoopla from various organs of state, I'm at the point of thinking
the US government is violently committed to the destruction of the US talent
pool. Professional societies outside engineering (medicine, law, military)
need to belly up to the bar and move the "professional" grade math
requirements from calculus to linear algebra. Society has advanced
technologically, sorry.

~~~
jdsully
I always found linear algebra much easier than calculus. Odd to hear it talked
about as something more advanced.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Jack Hidary, author of the fantastic new book “Quantum Computing: An Applied
Approach”, makes the excellent point that linear algebra should be taught
before calculus.

------
m0zg
Top AI talent is already in the United States. Nobody else is ready to pay a
cool $1M a year for things that may or may not work.

~~~
jewelry
Not true. Alibaba/Tencent/Bytedance all eager to hire with more than a package
bigger than $1MM

~~~
pesfandiar
Purely from a money-for-labour perspective, shouldn't you divide that by 2 if
the employer has 996 working hours?

~~~
whoevercares
While that’s true, there’s another aspect that’s more lucrative: Number of
direct reports and actual power. Even for technical/research position, you’ll
get hundreds of people reporting below you if the compensation is really $1M
(500k even honestly). The career ceiling which is common in the west doesn’t
really exist. Many talented people I know choose to leave for that reason,
because their position is much much higher(e.g one former senior engineer in
google becomes “director of Recommendation group” with hundreds direct report
in one of BAT)

~~~
m0zg
Why would a researcher (i.e. someone whose talent is actually AI and not
management) want any "reports"?

~~~
whoevercares
Well there’s a director in most research institute right? In FAIR/MSR they
also have science managers which are top researchers themselves. At some point
it’s more lucrative to have fellow researchers and supporting engineers and
access to more resources. While it might not be that appealing to some people,
it indeed attracted many others.

People always talk about how much they hate corporate ladders, but honestly
most will happily accept a new position with a shinny title

------
windowlesley
It is by no means clear that what is termed "AI" today is indeed the
artificial intelligence that we all seek, love and fear and that will prove
useful. Perhaps most current "AI" researchers are wasting their time. Perhaps
not. Some useful metrics would help judge this, but in the absence of even a
clear definition of intelligence I see little hope of that.

In the absence of further information I hesitate to dedicate funding
preferably to "AI" based on faith alone. I might as well spend the money on
cheaper and more reliable power turbines for remote wooded areas in California
or finding a clean way to mine and convert coal to energy. Maybe the money
would be better spent upgrading the health-care system or replacing our Navy
with something more likely to survive a flurry of cheap cruise missiles.

There are an infinite number of ways to spend money and "keeping top AI
talent" is far down my list.

------
zitterbewegung
What about people following non traditional ways into AI? For me I graduated
with my Bachelors degree . I have refined GPT 2 without going for my PHD . I
hear of data scientists getting jobs even having less official education.

Top AI talent seems to be too narrow in this example.

------
scottlocklin
Fixed the title: "Keeping wages low for US tech companies."

------
brooklyndude
We had some great pitches. A beautiful deck. Voice, AI, Alexa. Met with a
number of VC. Just to hard to deal with, I'm thinking we should have
approached China. I left the company, they seemed to have imploded. They
finally got a few $$$, heard the VC are taking 40%.

China? They seem to get it. Here it's a bloodbath to raise a dime. For money
is our new God. I'm not sure China is at that point yet.

Learning Mandarin. :-)

------
solarengineer
I’ve worked in and traveled around the US for a few years ( Nashville, San
Antonio, Palo Alto, SF, Portland, Houston, Atlanta). I left the US in 2014 and
haven’t returned since then. I can share that the horror stories I read about
the current US politics, climate change denial, police excesses, homelessness
and the related squalor have reduced my interest in considering the US as a
long term home :( I’d rather innovate in other countries that are friendly and
safer ( I’m in Singapore now).

I work with a PhD in mechanical engineering, who shares my views about the US
not being a Long term place to stay at ( at least based on current status).

The rest of the world used to see the US as a leader, as a peace keeper. Now,
not at all. :(

~~~
commandlinefan
> I’m in Singapore now

[https://immiguides.com/immigration-
guides/singapore/](https://immiguides.com/immigration-guides/singapore/)

\- Singaporean citizens of Chinese heritage tend to enjoy preferred treatment
over their Malay and Indian counterparts. Examples of overt discrimination
include employment ads specifying that someone must be of Chinese origin to
apply.

\- the Singaporean government censors sexual, political, religious, and
racially sensitive material. Lawsuits are often used to quiet dissidents.
Journalists often self-censor, to limit their legal liability. This also
limits the development and prevalence of non-commercial art

\- members of the LGBT community face discrimination in Singapore. Male on
male sex is illegal. It is difficult for members of the LGBT community to find
housing (landlord discrimination).

\- punishments commonly involve caning and long prison sentences.

~~~
throwaway5752
Isn't it sad that, in spite of what you described, the US is perceived as
substantially worse than Singapore by people around the world? Via
[https://www.reputationinstitute.com/country-
reptrak](https://www.reputationinstitute.com/country-reptrak) \- Singapore is
20, US is 34.

~~~
ericmay
Just goes to show the negative PR campaign is working.

Obviously the U.S. has problems, but on the whole it is pretty great. I’ve
traveled quite a bit and lived in other countries, and some are better in some
respects, worse in others by a large margin.

People complain about police at schools in the U.S. (and it’s fair) but I
don’t feel comfortable in Paris walking by a Jewish school that has soldiers
with rifles standing outside either. YMMV. ️

~~~
larnmar
The sad part (speaking as a non-American who has lived in the US) is that the
negative PR campaign doesn’t even come from America’s enemies, it comes from
within. And it’s not driven by ill will, as far as I can figure out, but petty
tribalism.

At some point in the past few decades it became de rigeur among a certain
fraction (eg those in this thread) of the US population to shit on their own
country at every opportunity, to distinguish themselves from those flag-waving
yahoos in the other tribe. Patriotism became heavily tribalised, and saying
good things about America in certain parts of the country gets you ostracised
as one of those uneducated Republican types who is too stupid to see that
absolutely everything is so much better in every other country and if it isn’t
then it doesn’t count.

Combine this with the US saturation of global media, and you can turn on the
TV in every country and see Americans shitting on America. Eventually the
message starts to sink in.

People in America need to get more perspective, and quit letting every single
thing that comes out of their mouth be determined by some boring red vs blue
conflict.

~~~
allovernow
You're being downvoted, but having grown up between conservative enclaves
(overseas military base, Texas A&M) and ultra progressive domains (years in
NYC and Seattle), I've seen firsthand, without choosing a side, that
patriotism and apologism has very much become an American Right wing position,
while those on the left are increasingly ashamed of the American flag.
Particularly since the election of Trump.

------
nine_zeros
Very true. Many countries are on their way to developing entire industries
around tech. This was previously only exclusive to US, maybe Japan.

Some of those countries are attracting previously unheard-of talent and
subsequent funding from the US. It's hard to imagine how future US startups
can ever compete.

~~~
pinkfoot
By tech do you mean “consumer-facing software products”? For if you mean
technology in its broader sense, I assure you many countries have and are
built around it.

~~~
nine_zeros
I mean entire ecosystems that forms "industry".

I also mean entire marketplaces, solutions and systems that the US tech
industry is now having to copy from somewhere else.

------
zerr
Did you fix your healthcare and education systems?

------
hansdieter1337
With keeping they mean “immigration” and with “AI talent” they means asians?

------
nurettin
From what I've seen and heard from afar, US is a pretty expensive and
stressful place to be in. In fact, I wouldn't want me going there because I'm
a pretty conservative guy myself and I think everyone should stay in their own
country instead of crowding places where opportunity presents itself. Grass is
always greener on the other side, so I'd rather chill at my home country and
do remote work.

------
giardini
Why should money and effort be expended to, in particular, keep top AI talent
in the USA? "AI" is just a name and in most usage today means "machine
learning" and especially "deep learning". Neither GOFAI nor machine learning
are even halfway steps toward useful true artificial intelligence. Do not
mistake a name ("AI") for the real thing (artificial intelligence).

Meanwhile there are many, many ways other than AI to spend our dollars for
both research and education: healthcare, energy, climate change, a more modern
military, etc.

We tend to treat the term "AI" as if the technology were already true
artificial intelligence but it is little more than a set of pretty good
recognition and classification algorithms. Investing billions in a teechology
prematurely is always a mistake since it will divert those billions from other
uses. But I see no technology remotely approaching the intelligence of a
6-year-old child even on the horizon today. Now I'm not saying that we
couldn't use a zillion 6-year-olds (after all, Victorian England did so with
their workhouse system) to do useful work, I'm just saying that "AI" (the poor
version, not artificial intelligence) is very likely to become a financial
sinkhole and cause possibly decades of lost effort if we get carried away by
mistaking a term for the real thing:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MEETS NATURAL STUPIDITY Drew McDermoH MIT At Lab
Cambridge, Mass 02139

[https://homepage.univie.ac.at/nicole.rossmanith/concepts/pap...](https://homepage.univie.ac.at/nicole.rossmanith/concepts/papers/mcdermott1976artificial.pdf)

