AI professors are negotiating the new realities of academic research

At a convening for the Schmidt Sciences AI2050 program, I saw how academic researchers are facing up to the challenges of the AI era. Last week, I headed 30 miles south of San Francisco to a hotel in Mountain View, California, to join some of the most accomplished, and some of the most promising, AI researchers in the world. I was hosting roundtable interviews and speaking at a media training for a convening of the Schmidt Sciences AI2050 program, an initiative funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that supports academics whose work involves AI. The fellows list is a who's who of AI luminaries, and though not all of them made it out to the Bay, every time I turned a corner I saw a scientist whom I'd interviewed previously or whose research I admired. It's a weird time for university AI researchers, who make up most of the AI2050 group. In the past four years, AI research has reoriented around large language models, and its cutting edge has moved from academic institutions to private companies.