My story as a self-taught AI researcher • Hacker News Board

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#101

Post by solveit » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 3:59 AM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #90

jshowa3 wrote: post #81

I don't know why people think getting a credential does nothing or that people "copy and paste" the assignments. Sure it may be possible, but what prevents people from copying and pasting public git repos? Either way, this whole focus on "portfolios are everything and credentials are meaningless" spits in the face of all the work I did to get my university education. And it didn't involve "copying assignments". And y…

> I don't know why people think getting a credential does nothing Then actually pay attention to the arguments they're making instead of talking about how offended you are because it goes against your self-interest as a degree holder. It's not as if the people bashing modern education are some kind of elusive minority. I've got a master's degree and I've always though our education system is stupid, and at least in t…

> Absolutely nothing you learn in a college education you can't learn yourself for free on the internet.

This is categorically false. Face-to-face time with an expert is incredibly valuable and incredibly expensive outside of an academic setting. In fairness, you have to show some initiative in college to get quality face-to-face time with a professor, but it still takes a lot less motivation than self-studying a complex subject for a nontrivial amount of time.

Which brings me to my second point. There's an enormous amount of free stuff you could learn from. But actually doing it is a completely different matter and the overwhelming majority will fail. For instance, the bulk of a university-level education in pure mathematics is over a century old, and free resources are easy to find. With stackexchange, you can even get expert feedback on your work! Yet most people who try (who are already a very self-selected sample) do not in fact succeed in teaching themselves undergraduate level mathematics. Even Ph.D. students taking a few years off for whatever reason find it highly (but not impossibly) difficult to do any significant amount of self-study for a prolonged period of time. And these are precisely the people who are training to become independent researchers!

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#102

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

K0SM0S wrote: post #29

This was a great read (and great nuggets, like that paper on Intelligence by Chollet). I wonder: — Is math a problem for non-academic researchers? Most papers strike me as requiring a non-trivial knowledge of linear algebra, for instance; and topology sits right behind; the bold seem to take it one up on category theory as we speak, and geometric algebra is quickly gaining traction too. Lots of math, cool math but ma…

[deleted]

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#103

Post by finneganscat » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

andreyk wrote: post #43

K0SM0S wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I understand correctly, to reformulate in my own words/views: while the "big data" (datasets) formed and thus owned by big-tech, big-ads, big-brother, etc. may be instrumental to build at-scale solutions for real-world usage (for profit, knowledge, control, whatever actionable goal), fundamental research itself, as done in universities, can move forward without these datasets: using what's publicly available is…

yep, you read that right. Source: I am a PhD student at Stanford at the Stanford Vision and Learning lab ( http://svl.stanford.edu/ ) and read a ton of AI papers. The vast majority of papers are done with datasets anyone can just download / request, as far as I've seen.

How dare you use credentials as qualifiers around these parts? Lol, just kidding.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#104

Post by codebolt » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

tprice7 wrote: post #82

codebolt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction is that whoever comes up with the next forward leap in AI will be someone who at minimum has a firm grasp on the various branches of undergraduate level maths. Naively tinkering with heuristic statistical ML methods like neural nets and hoping that higher level intelligence somehow magically pops out isn't the way forward. We need a more sophisticated approach.

This is logically independent from any claim about the value of formal education. I speak from experience that an undergraduate degree is not necessary in order to gain a firm grasp of undergraduate level math. Happy to elaborate if that is desired.

I'm sure it's possible to learn on your own, but I think most people would benefit from taking a few years of their lives to dedicate to learning surrounded by a community of teachers and like-minded classmates. Learning on your own requires a lot of discipline and dealing with solitude.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#105

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

wigl wrote: post #49

drongoking wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what really mattered was self-promotion, good timing, and luck. Yes. He seems like someone who is good at self-promotion and networking. Well, good for him, but I think he underplays the role these have in his success. > Why does the author have to present his life like one would in a fucking college essay? I guess that's the self-promotion. And humble-bragging. Like this bit: "I started working as a teacher in…

> Well, good for him, but I think he underplays the role these have in his success. Exactly. Good for Emil, but it's always frustrating to hear survivorship bias preaching. Even the interviewer starts off by saying: "By the way, I really love your CV - the quirks section was especially fun to read." It's even more frustrating when I hear non-POC's talk about their journey to some non-western country (and subsequent c…

> It's even more frustrating when I hear non-POC's

If you want to talk about white people say white people.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#106

Post by JDiculous » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

solveit wrote: post #101

JDiculous wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know why people think getting a credential does nothing Then actually pay attention to the arguments they're making instead of talking about how offended you are because it goes against your self-interest as a degree holder. It's not as if the people bashing modern education are some kind of elusive minority. I've got a master's degree and I've always though our education system is stupid, and at least in t…

> Absolutely nothing you learn in a college education you can't learn yourself for free on the internet. This is categorically false. Face-to-face time with an expert is incredibly valuable and incredibly expensive outside of an academic setting. In fairness, you have to show some initiative in college to get quality face-to-face time with a professor, but it still takes a lot less motivation than self-studying a com…

> This is categorically false. Face-to-face time...

Just because talking to an expert is valuable doesn't mean you can't learn it for free on the internet. Also most undergrad curriculums are teaching old stuff - not exactly cutting edge knowledge requiring face-to-face one-on-one time with an expert in your field.

It's not as if the alternative to 4 years of undergrad and $100-250k in tuition + living costs is just teaching yourself the same arbitrary curriculum alone in your room for 4 years getting a degree in some random field learning things you never actually use in the real world. One could instead intern or work, and not only potentially learn significantly more relevant and lucrative real-world skills for free, but actually get paid to do it. A business student could instead work directly for entrepreneurs and use that tuition money to start their own ventures.

Most people use very little of anything they learn in school after they graduate. For example I majored in math, and now as a software engineer I don't use any of that. I know some math majors will try to rationalize it by saying they learned "problem solving" skills or whatever but there are a million other more useful things I could've done instead of what I did in school. Everything I learn now as a software engineer I either teach myself or learn on the job. There is no curriculum that could prepare me for what I do now because by the time the curriculum is written, it would be outdated (well perhaps such a curriculum of "fundamentals" could be constructed, but the CS curriculum is not it).

The system is outdated, inefficient, and a downright pyramid scheme scamming the youth into indentured servitude in the U.S. If tuition was reasonable and having a college degree wasn't required for most jobs then I wouldn't be as critical of college.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#107

Post by JDiculous » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #93

JDiculous wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know why people think getting a credential does nothing Then actually pay attention to the arguments they're making instead of talking about how offended you are because it goes against your self-interest as a degree holder. It's not as if the people bashing modern education are some kind of elusive minority. I've got a master's degree and I've always though our education system is stupid, and at least in t…

> Absolutely nothing you learn in a college education you can't learn yourself for free on the internet. I don't know who "you" is (perhaps you in particular are very gifted) or what you personally learned in college, but on my end in college I specifically took particular classes to learn topics that I had previously tried and failed to learn on my own, so, if it's meant to be generic, I'm pretty confident your clai…

I only got my degree because everyone tells you to get one and most employers will throw your resume in the garbage without a college degree, though thankfully that's now changing.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#108

Post by TrackerFF » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

octokatt wrote: post #51

Was anyone else really put off by the congratulatory tone of the article, and the #Quirks list on the resume?: https://github.com/emilwallner/Emil-Wallner-LinkedIn-Resume#...

You know, they (read: recruiters) say that if you don't have a normal background, you should have an interesting one. For some reason, if you don't have the same cookie-cutter background as everyone else, you need to have some amazing and convincing story to tell.

I think it's good that companies are willing to look into non-trad candidates, that may not have found their "calling", so to speak, until their late 20's / 30's or whatever. But it does start to sound contrived when a bunch of 'em have the same type of alternate-route stories, which involves traveling to Africa / India / SE Asia to help out kids, create some startup aimed at climate / poverty / equality / etc. I guess it makes you sound passionate and legit - no-one can say that you wasted your time on chasing those things.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#109

Post by TrackerFF » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

qntty wrote: post #83

gwern wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one doubts the value of personal development, least of all the interviewee. But I'm not sure what that has to do with buying expensive formal education credentials.

Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors. Education done well unquestionably produces economic benefit. The solution to commodified, low-quality education with questionable benefit is standing up for high-quality education. Pretending that education can't be anything more than it's worse forms i…

"Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors."

That may be the case for small colleges with high tutors-to-student ratios, but it's not the reality in many of the behemoth colleges / universities that feed warm bodies into jobs.

I've seen first hand classes with hundreds and hundreds of students, where everything worked like an assembly line. Standardized tests with zero feedback, mentors were student TAs, a class or two above you, and they had been assigned to tens of students themselves - while correcting hundreds of homework / problem sets on the side.

When you go to school like that, it can quickly feel like you're just another name on a list, with some avg. grade on the side.

And it's only going to get worse with the ever-rising number of enrolled students.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#110

Post by w4n9r3ntru3 » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:01 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #99

w4n9r3ntru3 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some of the more 'difficult' domains, like computer hardware architechure, resources on the internet is sparce though.

Not only mention those fields that require lab work, practical field work, and/or specialized equipment or facilities to learn. This site is far too CS and math specific sometimes.

Yeah, you're right.