“What we’re seeing is not necessarily good for society, but it is rational behavior by these companies,” said Andrew Moore, the dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, who previously worked at Google. “They are anxious to ensure that they’ve got this small cohort of people” who can work on this technology. Costs at an A.I. lab called DeepMind, acquired by Google for a reported $650 million in 2014, when it employed about 50 people, illustrate the issue. Last year, according to the company’s recently released annual financial accounts in Britain, the lab’s “staff costs” as it expanded to 400 employees totaled $138 million. That comes out to $345,000 an employee.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/technology/artificial-intelligence-experts-salaries.html