AI Salaries Surpass Those of NBA Stars and A-Bomb Maker

When it comes to salaries, today’s top AI talent are enjoying unprecedented paychecks.

That’s according to a report Friday (Aug. 1) by Ars Technica, which cites the example of Matt Deitke, an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher offered $250 million — over four years — to bring his expertise to Meta. 

Such a figure, the report said, “shattered every historical precedent” for scientific and technical compensation the publication was able to find, including the salaries of the people involved in the space race and developing the atomic bomb.

For example, J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, made $10,000 per year in 1943, or $190,865 adjusted for inflation. Many professional athletes aren’t in the same neighborhood in terms of compensation. For example, the four-year contract signed by NBA superstar Steph Curry was $35 million less than Deitke’s deal.

The report argues these massive salaries reflect the stakes for tech giants like Meta and Google: who will be the first to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence — or AI capable of performing intellectual tasks at or beyond the human level.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors recently that the company would continue to invest heavily in AI recruitment “because we have conviction that superintelligence is going to improve every aspect of what we do.”

The report also cites a recent open letter from Zuckerberg in which he described superintelligence as technology that would “begin an exciting new era of individual empowerment,” while declining to detail what superintelligence actually is.

Apple, meanwhile, is planning to “significantly” step up its AI investments and dedicate more workers toward building its Apple Intelligence features, CEO Tim Cook said last week.

During the company’s earnings call, Cook said that Apple is making “good progress” on infusing more AI capabilities with its voice assistant Siri, which are set to come next year.

The aim is to develop a “more personalized” Siri and for AI features in iOS to be “deeply personal, private and seamlessly integrated,” Cook said. Offerings like live translation and “workout buddies” are coming soon.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about research showing that while most chief financial officers (CFOs) say they grasp the concept of agentic artificial intelligence — systems that can plan, reason and take actions with minimal or no human input — few are ready to implement it.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that almost all CFOs polled were aware of agentic AI, but only 15% showed interest in using it within their companies.

“A lot of companies are excited about what agentic AI can do, but not enough are thinking about what it takes to use it safely,” James Prolizo, chief information security officer at Sovos, told PYMNTS. “These tools are starting to make real decisions, not just automate tasks, and that changes the game.”

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