In this morning’s S.F. Chronicle, an article on artificial intelligence and the very hefty salaries that these Unicorn’s( experts) are getting because of their scarcity. Tech’s biggest companies in Silicon Valley are in a race to see who can come up with the latest in artificial intelligence. Some AI specialists including doctoral graduates fresh out of school and others with less education and experience, are getting paid $300-$500k per year ! This area of Computer Science is going to be "The Hottest and most in demand new area of study. My question, are Universities ready for the diluge of students wanting to get their degrees in this field ?
Well, the deluge of students wanting to major in CS has already hit many universities.
Within CS, artificial intelligence has always been a popular upper level elective course.
A similar article ran in the Boston Globe - last Monday.
Looks like Silicon Valley is falling behind.
A week is forever in computer time. 
Someone in the industry recently told me about the scarcity of AI expertise, suggesting it might be an excellent path to employment. Perhaps the depth of AI courses in many CS programs is insufficient?
It should also be noted that to become one of these AI experts usually takes a graduate degree and focus on AI or a lot of work on the side that is more than just doing a side project or two but more like writing a full academic paper. Most CS majors are plenty content going into the industry with just a bachelors, hence why specialists in this area are so rare.
It should also be noted that the demand for these experts is still quite small - the big 5 companies plus a few others want these experts and then the demand drops hard. This means that there aren’t actually a ton of jobs in the area (say compared to a web development position). An influx of AI experts would likely quickly drop the salaries back to 100K - 200K, which is near a nice salary for a good engineer in Silicon Valley right now.
CS is already in demand - AI being paid so highly won’t increase that demand much, if at all, because the barrier to entry for the field and the extra years of schooling is simply not worth it for most.
We will have to see how it works out, but “the deluge of students wanting to get their degrees in this field” will mostly find that they are diverted into quasi-AI roles (the horrible joke is that they will fill the need for Natural Stupidity instead of Artificial Intelligence).
IME, true AI people are rare and you can’t just decide that’s what you want to do. Many of them are picked off by industry well before they spend years getting a PhD, deciding that the opportunity cost of schooling for n years is too high.
Is there a link to the OP’s article? I could not find it.
My own team has need of said unicorn. I half jokingly suggested to my boss to consider me for the position, since my MS thesis research was on AI and machine learning 34 years ago and I have the conference proceedings publication to prove it.
@turbo93 but you would be less young, hotshot, “Unicorn” and more old, grizzled, “D$%# Kids, Get off my lawn!”, “Ogre”… >:)
@zinhead - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/technology/artificial-intelligence-experts-salaries.html?_r=0 - believe it’s the same article, just reprinted in SF Chron and other outlets. I read it in the NYT a week ago.
I guess I’m skeptical. My son lost his adviser to industry, but this man was experience and gifted.
It’s all about (a) getting your startup funded nicely and (b) getting a Big Player to buy your startup. The rest is mostly answers to questions nobody is asking.
My all time favorite has to be the bar scene face recognition technology that can tell men from women and how many of each go to which bars. This allows the app-wielding crowds to know instantly the ratio and thus the likelihood.
Something like that was actually funded.