Agree, for ordinary CS jobs, there's plenty of workers available right now, thanks to AI. But for highly specialized jobs including AI research, you still need to be able to hire immigrant talent.
I feel like this $100k fee is specifically for this type of uniquely skilled worker. If they are that in demand, then $100k is not a significant amount of money. There was recently an article in the New York Times about AI experts getting more than star athletes.
There's the O-1 for that.
O-1 is not enough. For jobs requiring bachelors degree, there is currently plenty of US-born workers looking for jobs. For jobs requiring masters and PhD there is still a need for H-1B visas, and O-1 is too high a bar.
Fine, so there are some that fall below the O-1 bar. Nonetheless, those are a drop in the ocean compared to the regular $150k jobs being lost to H1Bs.