The annual salary of the engineers of the five giants in Silicon Valley was exposed, and Google topped 1.34 million! But 37% of Americans are pessimistic about AI tools

Source: Xinzhiyuan

Editor: Lumina

In the autumn of 2022, after OpenAI released ChatGPT, it gained tens of millions of users in just a few months, and then broke the record for the shortest time for users to exceed 100 million APPs.

Later, image generation AI Midjourney, video generation AI Gen-2, etc. also attracted people's attention and pursuit.

The heat wave of generative artificial intelligence has almost swept the world:

The generative AI open source community is booming, giants have joined the track, and various start-ups have sprung up like mushrooms.

People have fallen into this round of technological enthusiasm, and the companies behind various types of generative AI are actively seeking for real-world landing scenarios.

From writing, office work, artistic creation, medical diagnosis, to scientific research...

Various technology companies with generative AI seem to want to destroy everything in the old world and make AI the protagonist of the new world.

And such ambitions undoubtedly make people feel very anxious:

When will the next death knell for elimination and replacement sound?

Members of SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America East hold signs outside the HBO/Amazon offices during National Union Solidarity Day on August 22, 2023 in New York City.

The future of work: substitution, upgrading, creation

The Future of Work organization recently conducted a survey of 2,204 adults:

More than a third (37%) of adults are pessimistic about the future impact of AI on migrant workers, and 25% believe AI will harm their industry.

Changes in technology at work are nothing new.

Aaron Benanav, assistant professor of sociology at Syracuse University, suggested that "technology has changed the way we work, at least the story of the past 200 years since the Industrial Revolution."

But “what’s different about generative AI is that it could potentially impact traditional professional jobs, such as legal services, financial services, and other high-paying jobs that have been considered unaffected.”

Felix Koenig, assistant professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, believes this is the reason why people are afraid of this round of technology.

A recent analysis by the Pew Research Center found that the most important jobs likely to be replaced or augmented by AI tend to be in "high-paying fields" where a college education and analytical skills will be key factors. A plus.

But history can help predict how generative AI will impact jobs in the future, and here’s what historians think is likely to happen:

Technology turns “good jobs” into “bad jobs”

Generative AI will change the nature of some jobs.

“Tools like ChatGPT can be used to break down a complex job that a person is doing into five jobs or ten jobs or even fifty jobs,” said Jason Resnikoff, an assistant professor of contemporary history at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Resnikoff argues that breaking down jobs that require a lot of skill and expertise into a series of smaller processes makes employers think workers have less to do, and therefore pay less.

In the process, introducing new technologies is a way to turn "good jobs" into "bad jobs."

One person can do work that used to take many people

Another possible impact of new technology: some jobs will be eliminated entirely.

Such as what happened after the introduction of sound films in the 1920s.

Before that time, movie theaters hired musicians to play live music during silent film screenings.

Although talkies did not completely eliminate the function of musicians to create music, theaters no longer needed to hire musicians to work during the film's screening.

A survey and analysis from Goldman Sachs found that 300 million human jobs will be eliminated globally due to generative artificial intelligence.

*** A new job is born ***

Generative AI will also have some positive impacts on migrant workers.

For example, academics often need to write research grant applications, but with the help of AI, these applications can become more formulaic and take less time.

In terms of programming, AI can help engineers draft basic code outlines, or even entire codes.

After old needs are met, people will create new needs, and new jobs will appear that did not exist before.

In fact, "new jobs" have already appeared.

Since the beginning of 2023, freelancing platform Fiverr has seen many new part-time jobs for generative AI pop up on their site: such as AI consultants and AI video editors.

While Hollywood is laying off screenwriters and other positions in large numbers, it is also opening up high-paying jobs for artificial intelligence.

ZipRecruiter is also seeing some new full-time positions, such as Artificial Intelligence Creative Director and Artificial Intelligence Research Scientist.

Software engineers who are still in demand

According to the latest report released by market research firm Blind, the average salary paid to entry-level engineers at Amazon, Google, and Meta is higher than that of Apple and Microsoft.

The average annual salary of entry-level engineers at the five companies is as follows:

Amazon: US$159,000 (note: currently about 1.159 million yuan).

Google: US$184,000 (currently approximately RMB 1.341 million).

Meta: US$179,000 (currently approximately RMB 1.305 million).

Apple: 142,000 US dollars (currently about 1.035 million yuan).

Microsoft: US$141,000 (currently approximately 1.028 million yuan).

The report also counts the professional engineers, senior engineers, engineering supervisors and other levels of the above five companies. From the perspective of annual salary level, it also presents the same situation as entry-level engineers.

There are also some interesting details in the report:

At Amazon, promotions can take longer. At the same time, Amazon has greater salary fluctuation space at different levels than other companies, so total compensation varies greatly.

Although Apple's salary is "lower and less competitive" than other companies, the salary and work intensity are basically equal.

Among large technology companies, Google has the most equal and balanced salary and work intensity. This means that entry-level engineers with low annual salaries have relatively less workload. For higher-level engineers, their salaries and workload will rise.

Meta engineers are promoted the fastest and have high salaries.

Microsoft offers multiple job levels for software engineers, with more flexibility for company promotion. But their total compensation is across the board lower than that of their peers.

**Open Future: Where Are We Going? **

On August 28, OpenAI officially released the enterprise version of ChatGPT, and the way we work in the future is about to change dramatically.

But that doesn't mean humans will be eliminated.

Although AI is better than humans in many ways, society does not run on the smartest people alone.

After AI takes over the original work for humans, humans will have the opportunity and freedom to move away from the present and explore the future.

Because human desires will not be quelled by being satisfied. Rather, it is desire that cannot be satisfied.

It is these desires that drive human beings, allowing us to have the ability to transform the planet and fly to the universe from an ordinary mammal on the earth millions of years ago.

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