What is the AI brain drain?

This article is part of Demystifying AI, a series of posts that (try to) disambiguate the jargon and myths surrounding AI. Twenty years ago, the people interested in artificial intelligence research were mostly confined in universities and non-profit AI labs. AI research projects were mostly long-term engagements that spanned across several years--or even decades-- and the goal was to serve science and expand human knowledge. But in the past decade, thanks to advances in deep learning and artificial neural networks, the AI industry has undergone a dramatic change. Today, AI has found its way into many practical applications.