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My story as a self-taught AI researcher

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Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#161

Post by newswasboring »

TrackerFF wrote: post #157
newswasboring wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about traveling. It's just one of the components. This guy was a teacher, musician, maker and now DL expert. And it doesn't seem like he is settled on that yet. He is still exploring what he wants to do. Changes his life to match his interests. I lived some of my life like that. Took some non standard paths. But it is getting increasingly hard for me to do this. Not because there aren't opportunities fo…

Let's be real here - and no, I'm trying to put this guy down: He was hardly a qualified teacher. Lots of young people up here go on voluntourism trips to countries in Africa or Asia to teach a couple of months. If you want to try teaching, you can do so locally; There are lots of options. Musician, sure, it's fun (I've toured in 4 different countries myself playing in band, though 15 years ago now), but it's hard to…

> You can work, save aggressively, and do whatever you want.

If you think I can do that, I have definitely failed in explaining what the problem is. I have almost my post tax yearly salary as savings (apart from the investments and stuff), but due to the reasons explained in my other post I can't do shit.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#162

Post by newswasboring »

K0SM0S wrote: post #159
newswasboring wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to dismiss somebody else's life experience because it looks too fancy. I have nothing against honest self promotion, it's someone's story and I clicked on the article after reading the headline. I have no indication that this person is pretending or faking it. Also, even without all the quirky things, there are plenty of things to be jealous of. Like all the different things he tried his hands at, the fr…

May we go on a short tangent about a word and its associated feeling? I submit to you that you don't sound jealous , because it really doesn't fit the rest of what you express; I suggest that you are maybe "envious¹" in the sense that jealousy means envy + depriving the other of what they have ("it should be me and not them", it's a matter of exclusivity, like being jealous of #1 if you finished second, or jealous of…

Honestly speaking, as english is not my first language, I confused the two words. I thought envious means to want to deprive others of what they have. I guess then I may have confused some people, I am envious but I think it doesn't detract from my overall point. The word in my language would literally translate as desire but it's more than that, it would mean more like I would like to have that and it feels bad that I don't even have the opportunity to have it.

I would definitely say this lack of even the opportunity to do this makes me feel despair. I can try as hard as I want, but some things are just out of my control, some truths about my life were written even before I was born. I honestly cannot muster up the strength to derive inspiration or motivation from these, because those things are relevant for things which are possible.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#163

Post by K0SM0S »

newswasboring wrote: post #162
K0SM0S wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May we go on a short tangent about a word and its associated feeling? I submit to you that you don't sound jealous , because it really doesn't fit the rest of what you express; I suggest that you are maybe "envious¹" in the sense that jealousy means envy + depriving the other of what they have ("it should be me and not them", it's a matter of exclusivity, like being jealous of #1 if you finished second, or jealous of…

Honestly speaking, as english is not my first language, I confused the two words. I thought envious means to want to deprive others of what they have. I guess then I may have confused some people, I am envious but I think it doesn't detract from my overall point. The word in my language would literally translate as desire but it's more than that, it would mean more like I would like to have that and it feels bad that…

Rest assured that jalousy and envy are actually often confused my many people, even in one's own language. ;-)

> The word in my language would literally translate as desire but it's more than that, it would mean more like I would like to have that and it feels bad that I don't even have the opportunity to have it.

Yeah, OK, I get it. That's a very good word (the one in your language). I think it's a rather universal feeling, this "invisible ceiling". Many people feel that for various reasons.

There's a certain school of thought, somewhere between philosophy and spirituality, that speaks of "abundance", and beyond (or perhaps before, on the way) of "inner peace" or "inner happiness". The oldest forms I know are Stoicism (western cultures) and Zen (eastern cultures), and you'll find it nowadays in e.g. Tony Robbins, that kind of field. I think there's truth in it that just works, at least it did for me (took me about 35 years to figure it out though, as it's just totally outside the realm of "education" nowadays¹, unfortunately IMHO).

One mechanism that I've always found to be true, is that from the depth of our biggest despair comes our symmetrical potential for joy, and vice-versa. It takes knowing how good/bad it gets to really feel how worse/better it is, or rather goes.

It's certainly trying on one side, but invaluably rewarding on the other.

[1]: at least in most of the western world, afaik.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#164

Post by icandoit »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #13
qntty wrote: post #6

"Many are realizing that education is a zero-sum credential game." Can this silly meme die already? Maybe it's understandable coming from an economist who values education for no other reason than it's economic effects, but it's strange coming from someone who clearly understands the value of personal development.

It seems correct to me. If I get a degree from MIT, somebody else can't. They have limited spots. He is promoting models of education for signaling employers that are not zero sum.

The slots needed be so limited.

MIT has takes 3,000 students, Canadian universities take 30,000 students. (Remember Canada has 30 million people and US has 300 million.)

- https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html

- https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolmen...

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#165

Post by randomdata »

jshowa3 wrote: post #158
randomdata wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A contradiction! Incomes have not increased if incomes are stagnant, and the data is quite clear that incomes are stagnant. How do we resolve this? Perhaps you are confusing increased income with being higher up on the income ladder? It is true that, statistically, those with higher education do find themselves higher up on the income ladder. They are not making more than they did before, when they did not have highe…

An increase income range is an increase in income. Most companies do not hire high school students or drop outs for more than minimum wage. How you can reconcile a higher educated person being higher up the income ladder, but not making more than what they made working minimum wage at a lower education level, eludes me. What stagnant income means is, they aren't making more relative to their productivity. Meaning sal…

> An increase income range is an increase in income.

I think I see the issue here. I am talking about the population as a whole, you are talking about an individual. It is true that over time individuals tend to move up the income ladder. And that more capable people move higher up the ladder thanks to being more capable, free of disability that hinders their achievement. However, the steps of the ladder have remained unchanged over decades. Making more than someone else is not the same as making more than you otherwise could have.

If we break that ladder up into percentiles, the person at the top of, say, the 70th percentile made x of number dollars in 1970 and the person at the top of the 70th percentile still makes x number of dollars today, in real dollars. In 1970 that person did not have an education above high school. Today that person does. Despite promises, their income did not increase with increased educational attainment. Incomes are stagnant. There was no advantage to gaining that higher education with respect to income. The person at the top of the 70th percentile, who got there because of the abilities and constraints they were born with, would have ended up there regardless.

> What stagnant income means is, they aren't making more relative to their productivity.

What stagnant income means is that incomes are literally not changing, relative to inflation. On average, if you made $1 last year, you will make $1.02 this year, assuming a 2% inflation rate. A real increase of $0; stagnant. To put it another way, incomes, in nominal dollars, are increasing at the same rate as inflation.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#166

Post by gamechangr »

newswasboring wrote: post #124

I'm not going to lie, his life story made me jealous. Extremely jealous. He did all the things I wanted to do (speaking in categories, not exact things) and is free to do more. It seems like in some cultures (mine is South Asian) there is a threshold on exploration time. Usually around the age of 28-30 years old (for some even lower than that, I consider myself one of the most fortunate ones). As I approach that numb…

"his life story made me jealous"

Don't believe it. Like him being king of the village??? LOL

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#167

Post by jshowa3 »

randomdata wrote: post #165
jshowa3 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An increase income range is an increase in income. Most companies do not hire high school students or drop outs for more than minimum wage. How you can reconcile a higher educated person being higher up the income ladder, but not making more than what they made working minimum wage at a lower education level, eludes me. What stagnant income means is, they aren't making more relative to their productivity. Meaning sal…

> An increase income range is an increase in income. I think I see the issue here. I am talking about the population as a whole, you are talking about an individual. It is true that over time individuals tend to move up the income ladder. And that more capable people move higher up the ladder thanks to being more capable, free of disability that hinders their achievement. However, the steps of the ladder have remaine…

But they are. You make roughly a million dollars more in your life time than you would if you didn't graduate college.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Exec-Summary-w...

Inflationary dollars are largely irrelevant as everything is more expensive than it was decades ago due to inflation.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#168

Post by JDiculous »

solveit wrote: post #119
JDiculous wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I maintain that there still exist things that you can only learn via osmosis. Sometimes, books and MOOCs just will not do. Also, > 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 i…

Please name me one piece of any STEM undergraduate curriculum that I can't learn for free on the internet, and then I'll take back my statement.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#169

Post by JDiculous »

jshowa3 wrote: post #153
JDiculous wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't know what university you went to, but there are such things as bad universities. Just like there's such things as bad Internet courses. However, the university I went to, could be classified as "No-Name" and I use what I learned in school almost everyday. In fact, I used K-maps to help a senior engineer struggling with a complex logic problem by simplifying it. The CS fundamentals I learn prevent me from writ…

CS fundamentals are great, thankfully you don't need to physically go to any university and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to learn them.

The alternative isn't just being an intern taking on grunt work, there are many who forego college to work full-time jobs in industry.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#170

Post by JDiculous »

w4n9r3ntru3 wrote: post #94
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…

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

Yea those would be the exception.

But then again, how many people majoring in biology or chemistry actually end up using anything they learn? I'd wager it's probably a small minority.

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