> once the first generation of lucky PhD’s (including me!) who were there not out of career prospects but mostly out of luck (or unluck), we started to have a series of much more brilliant and purpose-driven PhD’s working on deep learning. because these people were extremely motivated and were selected not by luck but by their merits and zeal, they started to make a much faster and more visible progress. soon afterward, this progress started to show up as actual products.
I have to say, though, that AI and robotics are going through similar transitions as were highlighted in TFA. Robotics has been basically defined by self driving cars for a long time, and we're starting to see the closure of some very big programs. Already the exorbitant salaries are much lower based on what I've seen, and demand is flat lining. My hope is that the senior level engineers with good PhD backgrounds move out into the broader field and bring their experience and research zeal with them as a force multiplier. I expect the diaspora of talent to reinvigorate industry innovation in robotics.
So it will be with LLM-focused researchers in industry in the next phase after we pass peak hype. But the things those battle-scarred researchers will do for the adjacent fields that were not hype-cycled to death will probably be amazing.
Unless they succeed in replacing themselves with general AI. Then all bets are off.