I don't see the parallel. A breakthrough or a patent is something that you do not know for sure you will achieve, but by hiring the best people in the field the chances of that happening go up and such competitive advantages are the cornerstones of corporate empires.
It's very similar, it's just that the metrics are not so easily measured. A top tier employee might accept the job only if their salary is 2x what a lower tier worker might accept. Now you have to balance out what you think the difference in likelihood between these two workers finding a "breakthrough" is, if what is a breakthrough worth to your business.
So then, tell me what a Rob Pike should earn vs a Geoffrey Hinton vs Peter Norvig. I would not know where to begin to make that estimate.
Whereas if a name in the entertainment business has 3 times the audience draw as another you could make a pretty good stab at what their relative worth should be.
Yea, I don't disagree. It is clearly much more difficult to estimate certain things compared to an entertainer and how many audience members they can attract. That's part of the reason myself and another poster used it as an example. I think the point you're making is also what the article was trying to get at, that there are an unknown number of AI experts and it's hard to estimate what they should be paid which is why many of them are getting these crazy high salaries.
