As for Uber, the AI researchers that were laid off were not from the self driving division.
Google's freeze as far as I know is for all engineers ( only backfilling attrition is permitted), not limited to ML.
I personally feel this slump in the ML job market is only temporary and related to a temporary loss of risk taking appetite.
As for the legit vs non legit ML practitioners, I don't see how the situation is going to improve any time soon. Because it's not just random engineers fooling themselves by saying they are great at ML, there are entire companies new and old where there has been an increasing focus/pressure to sell AI powered $XYZ snake oil. They don't care who they hire, and most likely they don't even know who/how to hire when it comes to ML/AI, because the whole process right from the top is let's sell it first and wing it later
Also these hiring freezes may be due to covid, not loss of hope in ML. Google's AI residency program seems to be delayed but still going ahead, almost all the others were cancelled due to covid logistics (to my knowledge, at least FAIR, MS and Uber).
That doesn't detract from the article's point though - lots more interest in those programs than there are places.
I'd also add that the cuts to ML teams seem to reflect more of a freeze on R&D in general--totally normal in a downturn--and that ML just happens to be a feature in a lot of R&D at this point.
Most of these companies have substantial investments in ML that aren't research-focused, they're powering their flagship products. At this point, ETA prediction isn't a speculative experiment for Uber or Google Maps, just like RankBrain, Smart Compose, spam filtering, etc.
Google's freeze as far as I know is for all engineers ( only backfilling attrition is permitted), not limited to ML.
I personally feel this slump in the ML job market is only temporary and related to a temporary loss of risk taking appetite.
As for the legit vs non legit ML practitioners, I don't see how the situation is going to improve any time soon. Because it's not just random engineers fooling themselves by saying they are great at ML, there are entire companies new and old where there has been an increasing focus/pressure to sell AI powered $XYZ snake oil. They don't care who they hire, and most likely they don't even know who/how to hire when it comes to ML/AI, because the whole process right from the top is let's sell it first and wing it later