Google is reportedly paying a few of its AI software program engineers working within the DeepMind division to do nothing for a complete 12 months. In keeping with Enterprise Insider citing 4 former staff, DeepMind workers in the UK with noncompete agreements are being placed on what it calls “prolonged backyard go away” for 12 months. Because of this these staff, who’ve already left DeepMind are nonetheless being paid by the tech big in the course of their noncompete agreements.
For these unaware, when staff be a part of an organization, their contract might embrace a ‘noncompete settlement’, a clause utilized by tech giants to stop individuals from working for a competitor for a sure period of time after they go away the corporate.
These clauses are affected by numerous elements like an worker’s seniority and the way necessary their work is for the corporate. The report means that amongst the 4 former staff, two mentioned that six-month noncompetes are fairly commonplace for DeepMind staff. Because it seems, this additionally applies for particular person contributors who labored on Gemini AI fashions.
Whereas these lengthy paid time offs are good, some staff might really feel like they’re lacking out on the quickly evolving panorama with a former DeepMind worker saying {that a} 12 months is without end on this planet of AI.
Google instructed the publication that its “employment contracts are consistent with market requirements” and the corporate selectively makes use of noncompetes to guard its pursuits. Nevertheless, some DeepMind staff really feel just like the clause is proscribing their motion.
The information at a time when massive tech firms like Google, Meta, HP, Microsoft are shedding staff, with over 8,500 individuals shedding their jobs in month of March. And whereas tech leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and Microsoft’s Invoice Gates have hinted that AI will substitute virtually all jobs aside from a handful of professions, it seems to be like there AI engineers will likely be round, a minimum of for the subsequent few years.
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