
AI Talent Shortage? More Like Pokemon for PhDs - sixtypoundhound
https://jansanity.com/ai-talent-shortage-more-like-pokemon-for-phds/
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cbanek
Well, if you don't understand what skills you're looking for other than the
one buzzword "AI", then you almost certainly don't know how to measure those
people. So then it becomes a credential / status game ("I have a Ph.D", "I
went to Stanford", "I want twice as much money because I think I'm twice as
good as anyone else", or whatever ideas your recruiters/execs have in their
head is "good").

If you can't recognize the skills, you certainly can't recognize talent.
Recognizing talent without using skills or credentials is still very hard for
companies. Basically you need someone with the skills, credentials, or talent
to recognize someone else worth having.

That being said, HR or even recruiters honestly don't do any evaluation of
candidates anywhere I've ever been. It's all delegated to engineers and
technical people. HR is just there to fill out paperwork, handle logistics,
and cover their butts on legal matters. Should they be fired? I'll leave that
up to you, but I think the skills of most HR people and teams are highly
overrated, although necessary at some level.

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throwawaybbqed
Meh .. staff with PhDs are good for different things than those with Masters.
If you are applying established methodology, you don't need PhDs on your team.
For new things or things for which there is no established methods, PhDs are
essential IMHO.

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sixtypoundhound
I'd lead with a good business architect, honestly. Plus some scrappy masters-
level street hackers who are willing to get their hands dirty.

Act one at a new business is rarely rocket science. Lots of low hanging fruit.

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6gvONxR4sf7o
Data science seems like it has a feedback issue. If you design an experiment
poorly, it's easy to never know you learned the wrong thing. If you're
building an ML model and it's less accurate that what an expert would build,
you might never know either. When you build many other kinds of products, it's
easier to know whether they're working. Data products don't seem that way. I
wonder if that could lead to weird "market for lemons" sorts of things.

