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Ask HN: Machine learning, AI – struggling learners

12 points by samblr ↗ HN
First time I tried learning machine learning was in Andrew Ng's mooc back in 2011. I gave up as I had other commitments at the time and since then following ML only in tech news. As many experts advise that Machine learning, Deep learning and AI is a necessary skill going ahead (5-10 years) for a programmer - I have tried to pick it up again.

But whilst understanding math concepts I feel lost at 2-3 levels down of any link/training/forum/paper. Then I spend time brushing concepts of the same. I feel my progress is in slow-mo.

Any advise from people who have jumped to ML-AI wagon feeling the way I do ? Any people in learning-struggling wagon and how are you coping ?

6 comments

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selectron
There is no way machine learning will be a necessary skill for software engineering, if that is your motivation I would not spend time learning it. However, if you still want to learn it you should first study statistics, for instance http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/.
boniface316
I have started reading this book. So far so good.
samblr
Thanks for referring stats book.
vaibkv
You need to pick up problems and do them. Pick up a problem and learn the math for it, then code it, and then if you like, publish it or blog about it. You only learn a subject by doing problems. So, you need to think about the list of problems you're going to solve. Here's a starter list - make a recommendation engine for books to read for a user, make a sentiment analysis prediction algorithm for hospitals based on patient feedback (textual), make a spam detection engine for sms'es you get on your phone, make a multi document summarizer, make a prediction model for predicting whether a certain flight would be on time or not, make a bot application for your phone such that for everything you want to do on your phone you just go to that bot application and type in and tell it what to do, advance your bot by taking voice instructions, make a AI game to play tic-tac-toe - make your friends play with it and let it learn / grow it's training data and then it should improve in beating other people. If you only do these, it'll take you a few months. But like they say - "when you want to learn something, assume you have all the time in the world". Best of luck!
boniface316
Hey man, I am in the same level as you. I am really pushing myself to learn ML and AI. If you would like, you and I can motivate each other in achieving this. I always love to meet people who wants to do great things in life. Let me know if you are interested in connecting with me to move forward.