Amid the burgeoning technological revolution, AI-related jobs are not only becoming more numerous, but are also offering much higher salaries.
According to a recent study by Bizreport, AI roles offer salaries 77.53% higher than other occupations, signaling the beginning of a lucrative era for those with AI skills.
This surge in compensation, described in “The Impact of AI on U.S. Workforce Salaries,” is not limited to seasoned technology professionals. A new role has emerged in digital job postings. Rapid engineering, a very profitable task that interestingly requires no engineering at all. These positions welcome individuals with only a basic understanding of programming and AI models and have salaries of up to $449,000 per year.
Andrej Karpathy, a former Tesla and current OpenAI developer, praised natural communication over programming as a new way to communicate with computers.
“The most popular new programming language is English,” he said in a tweet posted on his Twitter profile.
The most popular new programming language is English.
— Andrei Karpathy (@karpathy) January 24, 2023
The financial appeal of AI jobs is undeniable. Specifically for rapid engineers, the average annual salary in the United States is $62,977, with top earners making up to $95,500 per year, according to data from ZipRecruiter reports. In the highest paying cities, like Berkeley, California, you can see immediate engineering salaries of up to $80,745.
Bizreport said it “collected data from the eight most popular job posting platforms in 2023” and then used keyword research to categorize and analyze AI-related job offers. “In just one year, from 2022 to 2023, computer science salaries in the United States have witnessed a significant surge, with an impressive average increase of 45.87%,” the study concluded.
Things get better for entry-level positions, which earn about 128.23% more than non-AI-related positions. For jobs that require more experience, the gap begins to narrow as more senior positions are paid. Only An average of 48.61% more.
At the forefront of this lucrative niche is the art of creating compelling prompts for AI. “It’s an incredibly versatile technology and an early example of programming with a bit of natural language,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged.
This sentiment has been echoed by individuals like Mark, a technology writer and YouTuber. decryption How profitable it can be to take the time to sell prompts on the internet. “There are people trying to make $100,000 this year selling prompts,” he said.
But competition in the field has also increased. According to data from LinkedIn, which is owned by OpenAI investor Microsoft, “Job posts that mention artificial intelligence or generative AI have seen 17% higher application growth over the past two years than job posts without such mentions.”
Erin Scruggs k, vice president of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn, recommended that companies build an appropriate AI strategy to “keep pace with the market.”
Bizreport’s findings support LinkedIn’s findings.
“We project that there will be potentially more than 131,000 AI-related jobs in the computer science market by 2024. These significant numbers indicate rapid growth and demand for AI expertise in the job market,” the study says.
Unlike traditional coding roles with roots in computer science, prompted engineering is now targeting people with non-traditional backgrounds. Anna Bernstein, rapid engineer at Copy.ai, told Time Magazine: “I never had a technical background, but having a humanities background in this field seems like a win to me.”
In particular, the role of prompt engineering has led to an increase in “quick hacking” by independent prompt engineers who use their knowledge to push AI models beyond their prescribed limits. From creating nude images or NSFW responses to revealing sensitive information, it can be fun or dangerously lucrative, depending on who’s doing it.
So while it’s clear that AI will someday automate many (or all) of our jobs, for now it’s providing some of the most lucrative positions in the workforce. With these impressive salaries and accessible pathways to entry, it appears that AI could create better jobs than it takes away, at least for now. Maybe the joke is about robots after all.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
