Moneyed people are ready to pay these salaries because a lot of them have succumbed to hype equating "AI" (that phrase alone is complete bullshit) to something bordering on "magic," and bringing equally magical money making opportunities.
The prospect for business owners to get rid of white collar workers in a manner not unlike how machines swept blue collar workers is just this much irresistible.
For a very broad meaning of "in the field". Academic salaries are kind of meh. The eye-watering salaries you mean are paid by large technology companies and I don't think those hire you on the merit of your publications, only. For example, allegedly google and facebook et al hire drop-outs from PhD programmes in highly rated institutions etc. so people who haven't yet had the chance to change the face of AI with their research, if I may be so bold.
So, is this, at the end of the day, that the ratio of students willing to study graduate level studies, and jobs that require graduate level studies is dramatically imbalanced?
Sometimes, we as humans like to avoid the obvious discussion because it is the most uncomfortable discussion to have.
The truth is that we need more restrictions and an even higher bar on education that artificially pipes the best of the best in corresponding numbers to estimated availability of jobs in 4-5 years.
I am pretty sure that the medical world already does this.
In a way, I think a lot of the internal squabbles regarding diversity etc. in the AI community come from the animosity due to a shrinking cake and more hungry mouths.
This is bad and shouldn't be emulated in other industries.
The entire point of game theory is to align incentives. It is not to simply paint pictures of ideals and deny that humans are human.
I understand that the AMA has incentives that are not nearly as noble as simply ensuring the world has a steady stream of doctors. Nonetheless, the answer is not to simply say "the AMA has some impure incentives" as an actual dismissal of a different argument.
By the way, tenured positions do not pay eye-watering salaries. It's still the same vicious low stakes.
This is why my comment specifically addressed top positions and tenured positions i.e., a position with a specific world-renown research group. Competition for the positions that putting all that time and effort into a PhD would be for.
> employed in a research or at least R&D capacity.
Sure, jobs exist. I am not seeing where I denied this fact anywhere.
> tenured positions do not pay eye-watering salaries
Tenure is what I am specifically referring too. It's a form of intellectual and economic freedom.
Tenure is a benefit that is given instead of money to keep you from leaving for more money. It may be nice to have late in your career if you want to keep working forever or bizarrely want to stay at your research-focused school but focus on teaching. But money adds up nicely and has more flexibility. And like with job offers and promotions everywhere, it's something you generally can only get if they need you more than you need them.