The World Needs More A.I. Researchers

How many researchers are expanding the capabilities of artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems? According to new data from Canadian startup Element AI, there are roughly 22,000 PhD-level researchers in the artificial intelligence field. "Element AI said it scoured LinkedIn for people who earned PhDs since 2015 and whose profiles also mentioned technical terms such as deep learning, artificial neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing or robotics," read the Bloomberg article breaking down the data. "In addition, to make the cut, people needed coding skills in programming languages such as Python, TensorFlow or Theano." That pool expanded to 90,000 researchers when Element AI incorporated PhDs earned before 2015, as well.