There are many ways to earn a $300,000 salary working with AI on Jane Street. On the other hand, you can become an AI researcher building machine models. The other is to become a “master educator” who can teach people at Jane Street how to use machine learning in practice.
Please choose. Electronic trading companies now have both roles. At least in terms of salary.
Once bonuses are added, it’s tempting to speculate that a Jane Street researcher building deep learning models to power trading strategies might be paid more than a machine learning educator training Jane Street staff to use an AI assistant.
But this would misunderstand the problem. It is becoming increasingly clear that just knowing how to use AI is a valuable skillset in itself.
So Josh Woods, Citadel Securities’ chief technology officer, is the company’s most “in-demand” executive among clients, according to today’s Bloomberg article about the company. This is not because clients want to learn about Citadel Securities’ high-performance technology culture, but because they reportedly want to hear his thoughts on operating AI and automated trading systems. Mr. Woods became Citadel Securities’ de facto head of client education.
Similarly, today’s Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI is working with consulting firms like Accenture and PWC to teach clients how to use its AI coding tool, Codex. “Part of our responsibility is to help enterprises bridge the gap between how they use it, how they scale it, and how they move it even faster,” declares OpenAI Chief Revenue Officer Dennis Dresser.
Using AI incorrectly can be costly. Productivity for both suffers if their use is insufficient (according to our calculations, the average Citi employee uses AI once a day). Or, if used too enthusiastically, there will be reputational damage (witness the case earlier this month when the $2,000-an-hour law firm Sullivan & Cromwell cited the wrong case due to AI hallucinations).
In both situations, it’s helpful to have someone who can teach people about machine learning. Even if that teacher costs more than $300,000. Just ask Jane Street.
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