How Brain Drain from Academia Could Impact the AI Talent Pool

In the emergent war to have the best artificial intelligence capability, academia might have the most casualties. According to the National Science Foundation, 57 percent of new computer-science doctoral graduates in the United States take industry jobs, meaning they leave academia for the private sector. This is compared to 38 percent a decade ago, according to The Wall Street Journal. Given that academia is the primary breeding ground for skills in emerging fields like AI, what would a constant academic exodus of talent in the field mean for the future development of its talent pool? One of the biggest concerns is that there will be fewer graduates with a thorough education in AI. "The number of graduating master's and Ph.D.-level computer scientists may decrease, which is the opposite to what the current market is demanding," said Peter Morgan, chief AI officer at Ivy Data Science, an AI-as-a-service platform and training company based in New York City.