Does depend on where your PhD lives and what subject their PhD is in from where, and how many hours of work you expect them to do a week, and whether you need to full-time "prompt" them to get them to function...

Would definitely rather have a single postdoc in a relevant STEM subject from somewhere like Imperial for less than half the overall cost than an LLM all in though. And I say that despite seeing the quality of the memes they produce with generative AI....

Depends on what these PhDs are supposed to do. Also is this an average Phd or a brilliant PhD level? There is a huge spectrum of PhDs out there. I highly doubt these phd level models are able to solve any problems in a creative way or discover new things other than regurgitating the knowledge they are trained on.

> Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month

Do they really get paid that much these days?

$3k/month is the very top of the market.

Depends on 1) where the university is located (CoL), 2) if they went on strike recently to get paid enough to pay rent.

You can reliably assume that PhD wages must eventually converge to the rent of a studio apartment nearby + a little bit (which may or may not be enough to cover all other expenses. Going into debt is common.)

That amount is standard at EPFL and ETH, but I don't know about the USA.

I knew someone who got his PhD at EPFL. He earned almost triple what I did in the US.

ETHZ and EPFL are also top of the market in EU/UK.

Pedantic, but they are top of the market in neither since Switzerland is not in the EU, and definitely not in the UK.

But it is true that in Europe, Switzerland PhDs (and professors too) make most. Not just ETH/EPFL as well. UZH (Uni Zurich) has salaries of 50K CHF per year for PhD candidates (with increments every year) -- that's almost 60K USD by your fourth year. This is also true for other universities. And while Zürich is expensive, it is not _that_ expensive.

USA stipend is $25K to $30K annually

Lmao no

> $20k can't get you that many PhD. Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month, effectively costs double that because of school overhead and other stuff.

But you are not getting a PhD worker for 20K with "AI", that's just marketing.

Based on ubiquitous AI trainer ads on the internet that advertise their pay, they probably make <=$50/hr training these models. Trainers are usually remote and set their own hours, so I wouldn’t be surprised if PhDs are not making much as trainers.

Come to Italy where 1.1k is enough

Or Brazil where the DSc student stipend is 3100 BRL (roughly 500 EUR).