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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

#171

Post by randomdata »

jshowa3 wrote: post #167
randomdata wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Your link effectively only shows that higher earners earn more than lower earners.

That is not the same as incomes increasing because of higher education. Incomes have held stagnant for a number of decades, even as more and more people attain higher and higher levels of education. If 0% of the population had a higher education or 100% of the population had higher education, your income would remain the same as it is now.

McDonalds isn't going to pay someone flipping burgers a million dollars more over the span of their burger flipping career simply because they attained a physics degree. That is not how the economy works at all. If 100% of the population had a physics degree, someone is going to be left flipping burgers. 100% of the population are not going to be working on solving string theory. The economy cannot function in that manner.

Inflationary dollars are relevant as that is how we measure stagnant incomes. An income that tracks inflation is stagnant. Incomes are stagnant. We are not talking about spending.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#172

Post by ivansavz »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #121
deepnotderp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, linear algebra is not that difficult to learn on your own, and plenty of people do. Gilbert Strang's course on OCW has made introductory linear algebra quite accessible. Things like topology (e.g. TDA, persistent homology, etc.) aren't really mainstream yet, but even then most of it isn't really "hardcore" math in the sense that you can get away with a basic understanding, e.g. what a Vietoris-Rips comp…

I work as a data engineer, and i was interested in learning some of the stuff our data scientists do so i can better communicate with them. Teaching myself some statistics was fine, probability was fine too and quite fun and surprising. Both subjects have plenty of books that allow you to understand the intuition behind the things they do without having to dive deep into the proofs. Linear algebra was and still is a…

I think you might like my book, the No Bullshit Guide to Linear Algebra. It doesn't focus on the proofs, and instead gives lots of intuition and applications. You can check the reviews on amazon, and here is a link to a PDF with a few sample chapters: https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_previ...

There are also some video tutorials on the first chapters here: https://github.com/minireference/noBSLAnotebooks#no-bullshit... (lots of hands-on examples using the computer algebra system SymPy)

I won't lie to you and tell you linear algebra is "easy" by any means—there are a lot of things to pick up, so it takes some time, but it is totally worth it since LA is like the swiss-army knife of science: lots of features and super useful.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#173

Post by jshowa3 »

JDiculous wrote: post #168
solveit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone is a genius like you. And if you want to sit in your room and do tutorials and MOOC courses all day without speaking to a single soul, and you can figure everything out on your own without guidance, be my guest. I applaud you, because that's something I struggle with and maybe that says more about me than you.

Not only that, please tell me how many people can afford things like a mass spectrometer, fume hood, VNA, and other pieces of equipment that cost upward of 6,000+ dollars when they're in high school. If you want a real STEM education, you need to learn how to use test equipment unless you stick with CS or math, there isn't a lot of options to learn for "free". Even online courses cost money.

Sure there may be many people that get lucky and get into actual positions, but they're few and far between and are a direct result of success bias. The media shows you the thousands or so odd people that make it under extreme circumstances and never once mentions the people who never make it because that isn't "cool".

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#174

Post by jshowa3 »

randomdata wrote: post #171
jshowa3 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your link effectively only shows that higher earners earn more than lower earners. That is not the same as incomes increasing because of higher education. Incomes have held stagnant for a number of decades, even as more and more people attain higher and higher levels of education. If 0% of the population had a higher education or 100% of the population had higher education, your income would remain the same as it is…

Yes, but a science lab isn't going to hire a high schooler with no science degree. And no business will pay a physicist with a degree minimum wage. That's the point. The result of obtaining higher education categorically results in you earning more income. And most people filling minimum jobs are not people with higher education.

Are people with higher education in low wage jobs? Yes. Is this common? No. And the only reason it would be common is if there was no income incentive to gain higher education, which there isn't.

I'm beginning to think you really don't understand what I mean.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#175

Post by randomdata »

jshowa3 wrote: post #174
randomdata wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link effectively only shows that higher earners earn more than lower earners. That is not the same as incomes increasing because of higher education. Incomes have held stagnant for a number of decades, even as more and more people attain higher and higher levels of education. If 0% of the population had a higher education or 100% of the population had higher education, your income would remain the same as it is…

Yes, but a science lab isn't going to hire a high schooler with no science degree. And no business will pay a physicist with a degree minimum wage. That's the point. The result of obtaining higher education categorically results in you earning more income. And most people filling minimum jobs are not people with higher education. Are people with higher education in low wage jobs? Yes. Is this common? No. And the only…

> Yes, but a science lab isn't going to hire a high schooler with no science degree

What choice would they have if 0% of the population had a degree? This is ultimately why incomes haven't changed even as more and more people attain higher education. In the past the best and brightest people were hired into those positions as high schoolers. And now the best and brightest still are, except they have higher education now because of the social pressure to attain a higher education.

> And no business will pay a physicist with a degree minimum wage.

They absolutely would. Of course they would. I have no idea where you got the idea they wouldn't?

A person capable of becoming a physicist has little reason to want to work a minimum wage job though. The fact that they can attain a physics degree means that they do not posses the limiting qualities (disabilities, poverty, lack of intelligence, etc.) that leave less able people stuck in minimum wage jobs. People who are burdened with certain disabilities, poverty, lack of intelligence, etc. never had a real chance of completing physics degree. It is not within their ability.

> The result of obtaining higher education categorically results in you earning more income.

No. Those with higher educations, statistically, earn more than those without higher educations, but they are not earning more than people in the past who did not have higher educations. Additionally, this correlation exists because people who failed to attain higher education have qualities that limit their success in both school and the workplace.

> I'm beginning to think you really don't understand what I mean.

No, I fully understand that being able to excel in school is correlated with being able to excel in the workplace. This is obvious. Someone with crippling autism, which did not allow them to graduate from high school, was never going to become CEO of Google. I get it. That does not mean dropping out of high school will cause you to contract crippling autism.

It is well understood that education acts as a filter, leaving the poor performing people, who also perform poorly in the workplace, behind in academic achievement. This is quite different to school causing someone to become a high performer.

Re: My story as a self-taught AI researcher

#176

Post by JDiculous »

jshowa3 wrote: post #173
JDiculous wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone is a genius like you. And if you want to sit in your room and do tutorials and MOOC courses all day without speaking to a single soul, and you can figure everything out on your own without guidance, be my guest. I applaud you, because that's something I struggle with and maybe that says more about me than you. Not only that, please tell me how many people can afford things like a mass spectrometer, fume…

Ok yes my statement applies more to fields like CS and math and not to fields that require a lot of physical equipment (eg. chemistry).

I'm not claiming that the best way to learn is alone in your room, I don't even believe that to be the case. The best way to learn is by working with people who know more than you. That is generally what happens when you work a full-time job. Sure in school you can learn from professors, but (1) what you learn is often divorced from the reality of professional work (2) the format of listening to lectures, completing busywork, and taking multiple-choice exams on random information could be Googled isn't the most efficient way to learn.

Yes I know it's difficult to find work without a degree because companies unfortunately discriminate against applicants without degrees. I wouldn't be opposed to a law that banned employers from discriminating against non-degree holders unless the job clearly requires someone with the expertise gained from the degree (eg. medicine, not law or marketing).

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