gaudiocomplex OP t1_j21p0dd wrote on December 29, 2022 at 12:39 AM

Reply to comment by KamikazeArchon in What, exactly, are we supposed to do until AGI gets here? by gaudiocomplex

What a weird point to contend. Academia is dying, categorically. English adjunct professors make about $2,000 a class. That's it. There's an overabundance of capable PhD holders and nowhere for them to go. All this without even baking AI's coming impact into the equation.

And the newspaper that I wrote for no longer exists. Most are owned by conglomerates now that are squeezing the last drop out of them.

Edit: grammar

neomage2021 t1_j21t73d wrote on December 29, 2022 at 1:09 AM

Definitely not for STEM academia. I was making decent money in academia as a researcher at a university. Had many jobs in academia paying >100k. Left because I can make 400k+ in industry as an experienced software engineer though.

gaudiocomplex OP t1_j21tdkt wrote on December 29, 2022 at 1:11 AM

That disparity signals to me a dying industry. 🤷‍♂️

neomage2021 t1_j21u0hr wrote on December 29, 2022 at 1:16 AM

How? The companies that can pay 400k+ for engineers make a lot of profit. The fact that academia can pay 150k+ for pure scientific endeavor is pretty great. That's multiple times mroe than the average salary in the united states.

SvenDia t1_j22dtsk wrote on December 29, 2022 at 3:45 AM

You don’t think that maybe there’s an oversupply of people with PhDs?

And while newspapers are dying, they have been replaced by other forms of media. What exists now is not classical newspaper or magazine-style journalism, but it does exist and I would argue that more people are employed making news, feature and opinion content that at any time ever. there’s less gate keeping and perhaps lower editorial standards, but it’s there in huge amounts. And I don’t mean vacuous, influencer-type stuff.

And even newspapers that still exist have become multimedia companies. Some of this includes video content that requires writers, cinematographers, editors/post production, graphic designers, sound people, etc.

I work in communications for a public agency. Most of my colleagues are former journalists. I was an editor for a news radio station. I used to write news releases, web content, etc. I got bored with that and now my job is purely visual communications (video, graphics, photography).

I am not in the least bit worried about AGI. They can’t even get spell check or video recommendations right. I get ads for things I just bought. On the other hand, I prefer scanning and bagging groceries myself, until the computer screws up and a person has to come over and fix it.

wrinkly_thumb t1_j21r9s7 wrote on December 29, 2022 at 12:55 AM

Yeah where the hell does that person live, I want to go there