During my master's degree in data science, we had several companies visit our faculty to recruit students. Not a single one was a specialized NLP company, but many of them had NLP projects going on.
Most of those projects were the usual "solution looking for a problem to solve". Even those projects that might have had _some_ utility, would have been way more effective to buy/license a product than to develop an in-house solution. Because really, what's the use of throwing a dozen 25-30 years old with non-specialized knowledge, when there are companies full of guys with PhDs in NLP that devote all their resources to NLP? Yeah, you can pipe together some python, but these kind of products will always be subpar and more expensive long-term than just buying a proper solution from a specialized company.
To me it was pretty clear that those projects were just PR so that c-levels could sell how they were preparing their company for a digital world. Can't say I'm sorry for all the people working on those non-issues though. From the attitude of recruiters and employees, you'd think they were about to find a cure for cancer. Honestly, I can't wait for GPT and other productivity tools to wrech havock upon the tech labour market. Some people in tech really need to be taken down a notch or two.
Most of those projects were the usual "solution looking for a problem to solve". Even those projects that might have had _some_ utility, would have been way more effective to buy/license a product than to develop an in-house solution. Because really, what's the use of throwing a dozen 25-30 years old with non-specialized knowledge, when there are companies full of guys with PhDs in NLP that devote all their resources to NLP? Yeah, you can pipe together some python, but these kind of products will always be subpar and more expensive long-term than just buying a proper solution from a specialized company.
To me it was pretty clear that those projects were just PR so that c-levels could sell how they were preparing their company for a digital world. Can't say I'm sorry for all the people working on those non-issues though. From the attitude of recruiters and employees, you'd think they were about to find a cure for cancer. Honestly, I can't wait for GPT and other productivity tools to wrech havock upon the tech labour market. Some people in tech really need to be taken down a notch or two.