It really does seem kind of insane to stay in academia right now in AI. Far higher salaries are available at the moment in industry, although I expect that to g

It really does seem kind of insane to stay in academia right now in AI. Far higher salaries are available at the moment in industry, although I expect that to go down over the next 10 years due to the flood of students and to tools becoming easier to use. You get paid maybe 25% of your worth in industry, spend a lot of time dealing with disgruntled/cheating/unhappy students, have to deal with academic meetings, and then spend most of your remaining time writing grants that have a 10% chance to succeed. As a professor, I work about 60-80 hours per week, with about 30 hours being for meetings, teaching, etc. The remaining time is spend editing, reading, and writing (grants/papers). On the plus side, you get to run your own lab to work on the things you want (as long as you get money), be your own boss (mostly), and get the privilege of training the next generation of researchers and practitioners. I really feel like I have a lot of positive impact on people and my community as a professor, and I doubt I would have nearly as much individual impact if I worked in industry.