Even then, there are too many PhDs for few spots in academia and top-tier labs, so there's no way a PhD dropout could compete unless they have some other kind of experience.
Also, it's not that hard to publish in high-end NLP conferences, so it doesn't say much.
I watched a startup give an NLP AI engineer with only 1 workshop paper at ACL get a 150K remote offer less than a month ago. This person is in the middle of their BS program right now.
It is most certainly not easy to publish top AI research (unless you are doing unethical things). I repeat, if you have a NeurIPS main conference publication, you don't need to have a degree for a top AI lab to at least consider you.
If your experiences are different, my guess is that you're not an American.
No, not an American. Did you mean that Americans have lower standards than Europeans in this respect? I'm confused about your last sentence.
Anyway, my note was specifically about publishing NLP research at ACL conferences (ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, etc.), where publishing mediocre work hasn't been difficult. Just go through the proceedings, and you'll see that's the case. I don't know about NeurIPS.
