Artificial intelligence is on the rise, and high-end talents are in high demand

On May 3, in order to poach artificial intelligence expert Carlos Guestrin from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Washington's Department of Computer Science had to seek financial support from e-commerce giant Amazon.

Seattle-based Amazon wrote a $2 million check to sponsor two AI professionals, Guestlin and his wife, who also works in the field. To seal the deal, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos met with the AI ​​guru during a campus visit.

Guestlin is now a professor of machine learning at Amazon at the University of Washington. Regarding the meeting with Bezos, he recalled: "Bezos is very smart and likes to laugh loudly. We quickly got into a discussion of technical issues. The questions we talked about were: What research am I doing in large-scale machine learning? How can I influence Amazon? What impact does this technology have on business data?"

Google, Facebook and other technology companies such as Amazon are constantly expanding the scope of artificial intelligence. To this end, they have set up their own research centers and recruited big-name scholars in the field and potential doctoral candidates.

In addition, major technology companies are also scrambling to invest in this major at universities, as artificial intelligence was previously a niche subject. The University of Washington is located in the same state as the headquarters of Microsoft and Amazon. The university has always enjoyed a high reputation for computer science, and its artificial intelligence major is also well-known. Microsoft, Intel, Google and Amazon have all invested in some of the University of Washington's artificial intelligence research projects.

The University of Washington has also become a battleground for Silicon Valley companies to scramble for talent. Before hiring Guestlin, seven professors related to artificial intelligence at the university were poached by Google.

"There's a massive war for talent," said Oren Etzioni, a former UW professor who now heads the nonprofit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. "Literally every professor in the computer science department at the University of Washington has been invited multiple times to join these tech companies. It's been very tempting, to be honest."

These companies not only recruit big-name scholars in the field, but also focus on recruiting researchers who have just obtained a doctorate. Amazon has more than 50 artificial intelligence positions in Europe and the United States, looking for doctoral talents in the fields of machine learning, information technology and data science.

Last year, Google acquired DeepMind, a startup founded by Cambridge University graduates. After reaching an agreement with Google, DeepMind absorbed two Oxford University spin-offs specializing in artificial intelligence. As part of the deal, Google also launched research cooperation with Oxford University's computer science program.

Google and Amazon declined to comment on their AI ambitions.

Artificial intelligence is a broad academic field that uses technology designed to give computers the ability to make human-like judgments based on data and analysis. Research in this field includes robotics, speech recognition, image recognition, natural language processing, and expert systems.

The commercial use of artificial intelligence is still limited. Predictive text and voice recognition functions such as Siri are early achievements in this field. However, with the decline in computer costs and the rapid improvement in the ability to collect and process data, artificial intelligence has great potential for development.

Akli Adjaoute, founder and CEO of software company Brighterion, which uses machine learning to help credit card users identify financial fraud, noted that artificial intelligence is now a popular discipline in Silicon Valley.

American technology giants have long been involved in the field of artificial intelligence. Microsoft was recently granted a patent for a wearable device that can recognize the emotions of individuals or groups and is also equipped with a feedback system.

In addition, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt recently mentioned machine learning when discussing the company's current core business.

The relationship between technology companies and academia is always elusive. Some academics often complain that technology companies are not united enough in their research on current issues, and the most obvious point is that they are unwilling to share the large amounts of data they can collect.

Tom Mitchell, director of Carnegie Mellon University's computer science program, said the high value of large amounts of data encouraged companies such as Google to be more secretive.

However, some people support this relationship, believing that entering the industry can promote the development of science through real-world incentives. Hank Levy, head of the computer science program at the University of Washington, does not oppose Google's poaching of talents from the school.

“People often come back after being away for a year or two and bring new experiences that help them improve their ability to teach and research,” Levy said.

In late 2013, Facebook hired Yann LeCun from New York University to lead its AI efforts. LeCun is one of the brightest minds in the field, having worked at Bell Labs for more than 20 years and developing a system in the 1980s and 1990s that could recognize handwritten digits.

To attract LeCun, Facebook allowed him to maintain his position at NYU and to return to the university to work from time to time.

During the recruiting phase, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg read some of LeCun's papers before they met, which LeCun later said surprised him.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.