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Top AI Salaries Dwarf Those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race
Saturday August 2, 2025. 03:00 PM , from Slashdot
![]() To put these salaries in a historical perspective: J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project that ended World War II, earned approximately $10,000 per year in 1943. Adjusted for inflation using the US Government's CPI Inflation Calculator, that's about $190,865 in today's dollars -- roughly what a senior software engineer makes today. The 24-year-old Deitke, who recently dropped out of a PhD program, will earn approximately 327 times what Oppenheimer made while developing the atomic bomb. The Apollo program offers another striking comparison. Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, earned about $27,000 annually -- roughly $244,639 in today's money. His crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins made even less, earning the equivalent of $168,737 and $155,373, respectively, in today's dollars. Current NASA astronauts earn between $104,898 and $161,141 per year. Meta's AI researcher will make more in three days than Armstrong made in a year for taking 'one giant leap for mankind.' The report notes that the sums being offered to some of these AI researchers top even the most popular sports athletes. 'The New York Times noted that Steph Curry's most recent four-year contract with the Golden State Warriors was $35 million less than Deitke's Meta deal (although soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo will make $275 million this year as the highest-paid professional athlete in the world),' reports Ars. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/01/237243/top-ai-salaries-dwarf-those-of-the-manhattan-project...
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