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Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

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Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#41

How can there be experts on a subject that doesn't yet exist?

AI experts don't know how to create an artificial intelligence. AI researchers study how to solve various problems in CS traditionally performed by humans that humans don't solve by carrying out an algorithm by hand like Natural Language Processing, machine learning, automated reasoning, search (e.g. chess).

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just interview people. Ask them to explain what a SVM is. Ask them to explain how training a linear perceptron works. This kind of stuff.

Sketchy, but in the other direction. In high school I did a project that involved a support vector machine, and over the course of this I learnt how they worked to a reasonable level of detail. Two years later, I interviewed at a large SV company, and they asked what projects I'd been working on. I gave a description of this project (2 years prior) and my explanation was phenomenal; in order to understand SVMs two ye…

You're pretty harsh with yourself. You showed that you were interested in the topic and that you could learn it by yourself. I don't think anyone expect an intern to already master the subject he'll be working on, picking a smart motivated person is usually what you're looking for.

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#43

This is suspiciously close "data science" and "machine learning" experts. Can't we just be honest and say that most of these are applied statistics jobs with a specialty in large volumes of data? Or is "statistics" just not fashionable enough nowadays?

Fully agree. I mostly lost interest in AI because modern AI goes toward statistics. Unfortunately, symbolic AI doesn't get much traction nowadays, and that is understandable.

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#44
post #42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sketchy, but in the other direction. In high school I did a project that involved a support vector machine, and over the course of this I learnt how they worked to a reasonable level of detail. Two years later, I interviewed at a large SV company, and they asked what projects I'd been working on. I gave a description of this project (2 years prior) and my explanation was phenomenal; in order to understand SVMs two ye…

You're pretty harsh with yourself. You showed that you were interested in the topic and that you could learn it by yourself. I don't think anyone expect an intern to already master the subject he'll be working on, picking a smart motivated person is usually what you're looking for.

Ah, but if you combine it with the fact that when I did study those things I didn't really enjoy them, you can probably see why I look back on the experience with healthy scepticism :P

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#45
post #2

AI is very interesting but not very accessible because it's so specialized. I have a fairly strong programming background but feel like I'd need to study theory for a significant amount of time to even get my feet wet with AI. If you have (condensed, especially) AI resources that you think would help bridge that gap, please share! Toy-scale project ideas would also be appreciated.

There was a tutorial link trending on HN a few months back, I can't seem to find it. But these links are helpful (though not condensed) as well: https://github.com/ChristosChristofidis/awesome-deep-learnin... https://github.com/owainlewis/awesome-artificial-intelligenc...

These links can be helpful too:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7783550

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9432952

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2645671

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5508261

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004689

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#46
post #44
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're pretty harsh with yourself. You showed that you were interested in the topic and that you could learn it by yourself. I don't think anyone expect an intern to already master the subject he'll be working on, picking a smart motivated person is usually what you're looking for.

Ah, but if you combine it with the fact that when I did study those things I didn't really enjoy them, you can probably see why I look back on the experience with healthy scepticism :P

The question I'm more interested in: when you worked there as an intern, did you suck?

(If you didn't, maybe the interview worked...)

Apologies in advance for the bluntness, and don't feel like you need to answer.

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#47
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but if you combine it with the fact that when I did study those things I didn't really enjoy them, you can probably see why I look back on the experience with healthy scepticism :P

The question I'm more interested in: when you worked there as an intern, did you suck? (If you didn't, maybe the interview worked...) Apologies in advance for the bluntness, and don't feel like you need to answer.

I didn't work there; I went somewhere else for a number of reasons. I wouldn't have sucked, but it wouldn't have played to my strengths - my work would probably have been very average.

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#49

This is suspiciously close "data science" and "machine learning" experts. Can't we just be honest and say that most of these are applied statistics jobs with a specialty in large volumes of data? Or is "statistics" just not fashionable enough nowadays?

I often heard the Big Data guys hype that there's no sampling in Big Data, you have the whole data, so it's not exactly statistics.

Re: Artificial-Intelligence Experts Are in High Demand

#50
post #2

AI is very interesting but not very accessible because it's so specialized. I have a fairly strong programming background but feel like I'd need to study theory for a significant amount of time to even get my feet wet with AI. If you have (condensed, especially) AI resources that you think would help bridge that gap, please share! Toy-scale project ideas would also be appreciated.

'AI' is not programming, it's mathematics (well the current 'flavor' of statistics-based AI, that is - the 1980's style AI people I used to work with were philosophers, legal scholars and the like). Anyway, there is no 'bridging the gap' - you need to start from a good foundation of statistics (and the 'prerequisites' - algebra, calculus, linear algebra) and in the end, the technicalities of the software and the theory come together naturally.

(source: have tried to 'bridge the gap' for 2 year, including taking MSc courses, before admitting to myself that it's a lost battle. Am now starting to build a solid math foundation before revisiting ML applications.)

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