PhD in ML in the AI era, autoresearch [D]

Hello everyone,

I am currently a first year PhD student in AI/ML.

I am just wondering if I am not wasting my time doing a PhD in academia vs going to a research startup/company department directly. Given the rate of AI progress, and the needs in terms of infrastructure, I feel like academia is lagging behind. Especially if you are not a big lab with a lot of funding. And I am not even speaking about the pay regarding the CV and skills...

The number of papers per conference is just exploding, making me think the bar will be higher each trimester... What a great time right.

More importantly, given the development of autoresearch, open-endness, I am wondering what will be our work in the future, and opportunities. Sometimes, I am thinking that the best thing to do right now is to make money before it is too late to earn high salary in these areas.

I would love to hear your opinion or advice !