What would he advise an ambitious graduate student who wants to create a big impact on AI about taking a path on a startup vs academia?
- Academia is generally more amenable to long-term fundamental research.
- Research in academia can be made for the profit of all (often without patents) rather than for a particular group of owners of a company. I feel that I am working for humanity as a whole and this is very rewarding.
- A university professor contributes greatly to training the next generation of researchers, and this is also very important for the progress of future research.
- I don't consider that I need a better salary to increase my level of happiness. I already have all the gadgets I need.
- A university professor is basically their own boss. I can choose the topics of investigation that I want (although this is also true in some industrial research labs I could name, it is not generally the case in industry).
- I get a very high leverage through my collaboration with a large group of graduate students, something that is not always easy to get in industry.
About the Author
Yoshua Bengio
Head of Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, Professor @ U. MontrealWorks at University of Montréal
Studied at McGill University
Lives in Montréal, QC, Canada
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Top Writer2017
Session HostJan 2016