I don't love the increasing move towards industry research instead of traditional academia. It is just going to mean more closely-held, proprietary advancements.

Additionally, as a former industry researcher myself who now teaches at a community college, there is less research freedom in industry, especially with very free places like 1970-era Bell Labs and Xerox PARC half a century in the rear view mirror. Focused industry research is definitely valuable, but there seems to be fewer places in modern society that allow a researcher to be driven primarily by curiosity.

v.s. politicking forever, enslaving grad students and making only a passable salary? Not to mention being incentivized to lie, cheat and steal when publishing in order to maintain your position?

Academia as we know it has been dead for a while, and AI is the final harbinger. The reproducibility crisis got that much worse now that the papers that nobody ever bothered to reproduce have grown 10x in number with the press of a button.

At least the industry research jobs pay well, even if they suffer many of the same issues.

How do you feel about internships?