How to prepare for the age of AI?

[sserafim]

What should I learn? Any online classes or courses that you recommend?

 

[Malaria]

idk I just played around with some of the apps until I sorta got the hang of it. I don't really like AI very much, though it can be useful in some instances.

 

[Guy Smiley]

I'm not sure, maybe learn how to get on in an apocalyptic post-nuclear war wasteland, a la The Terminator?

 

[4am]

the best way is with molotov cocktails and pipe bombs outside of big corporations's server buildings, ai should not exist

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

 

[Guy Smiley]

the best way is with molotov cocktails and pipe bombs outside of big corporations's server buildings, ai should not exist

But what if AI decides we should not exist? Maybe it already has?

 

[Malaria]

But what if AI decides we should not exist? Maybe it already has?

My concern would then be that it would do some kind of business like AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream...

 

[untothedepths]

I really don't know. IMO AI should be used to make massive tasks more streamlined and easier but it seems to be potentially replacing artists, animators, and writers. Not to mention people are using it to make awful crap like blackmail and more. No surprise its been trained off the backs of peoples data without permission and nobody seems to really care about having some regulations or ethics for it. I really hate how much irony fuels life. It always takes the worst possible route with stuff like this its not even funny.

I though don't fear a world if eventually everything is automated and we could sit back and relax without working to death to survive...but we know thats not going to happen. I expect that more and more jobs will replace people and people are still expected to generate more money.

If you were asking about a career in AI, I'd have to assume you need some sort of school for computer programming and stuff, of course.

 

[theboy]

thinking that it will be a benefit for humanity.

 

[Final_Choice]

Play around with it, read about it, stuff like that. Depends on what you want out of it. Just "AI" is more of a buzzword for any program which works dynamically or autonomously at least to a certain extent. Spam filters on your email, for example, is usually made with machine learning and therefore is an AI, though spam filter won't take over the world alone.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I think the only thing that can be done is hope that it becomes regulated, because this shit with AI is getting out of control. A little girl killed herself recently because her bullies made ai generated porn of her.

 

[EmptyHeaded]

I don't think you need to "prepare". AGI is still quite far away. Unless you're into machine learning etc., you don't need to learn anything about it.

 

[HighFlight]

@sserafim - what is your goal?

Go to ChatGPT and create an account (if you haven't already). If you have a paid account, you can use their new model, but the free version is just fine to start. Then, explain who you are (general terms, not personal identity stuff), where you are in your career, your interests, what you want to do, and then ask it this same question.

Take that response, and go to perplexity.ai, or gemini.google.com and ask where to find the information, like online courses or articles.

DM me if you have problems.

Play around with it, read about it, stuff like that. Depends on what you want out of it. Just "AI" is more of a buzzword

Well said... many people don't understand the difference between generative AI (and other narrow AIs) and Artificial General Intelligence or AGI.

 

[Final_Choice]

Well said... many people don't understand the difference between generative AI (and other narrow AIs) and Artificial General Intelligence or AGI.

One of many big misconceptions people have with the AI craze.

I want to add that if you want to truly prepare and get ahead of the average person in regards to artificial intelligence you don't look at it as it's advertised, but do your best to understand the inner workings of how these models work.

For example, don't think of ChatGPT (or any other NLP LLMs) as something with intelligence but understand that all it's doing is taking your input and guessing what the most likely next word is based on its data, context, and input; and then it simply outputs a single word and does it over and over again until one of its hyperparameters sees that all possible next words have too low of a percentage to be the correct next output and then it finishes. This makes it seem like it can truly talk to you, but really you're just using the same technology a phone might use to suggest the next word as you're typing something, except it's equipped with immense amounts of data, utilizes a large neural network to give more accurate suggestions and be able to learn, and is developed in such a way that it continuously provides the next suggestion to make it seem like it's communicating.

While that's really all it does (the base model at least) it can get very complicated understanding all that and then delving even deeper into the parts that make up those and then the parts that make up those, and so on. However, learning how this technology works will give you a major edge if you want to prepare for this type of stuff. Like @HighFlight said, ChatGPT and other AIs can help guide you enough that even if you don't know programming you could still benefit a lot from just understanding it.

Also, my DMs are open to anyone who wants to talk about this stuff.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Hold out long enough until AI either destroys us all or becomes completely subservient to the point where everyone can have all of their needs and wants met thanks to AI. Accept nothing less than either of these two futures.

 

[Grav]

If learning for a job, I'd say get something that can't be done except in person, probably only the trades. Other than that prepare to be unemployed. It may not be here now but corporations will push AI as far as they can to replace humans, which are the biggest expense. And for those without jobs there won't be much to live on so the utopian world of robots doing the yucky jobs and humans living for enrichment and leisure is a pipe dream. It'll be too few resources and too many mouths. Watch Soylent Green, or any other sci-fi movies on the subject, to see what it'll be. I'm glad I'll either ctb by then or naturally expire. IT will need a few managers but the grunts will be culled, phone workers will be voice bots, movies/tv will be better ai. But you can't AI plumbers or clearing out septic tanks.

 

[leavingthesoultrap]

I don't think we can prepare fo it as it is going to bring the next industrial revolution.
I would say stay informed. Watch news about AI.
And don't pick a career in IT, programming, graphic design, and especially accounting.

 

[Ambivalent1]

With universal basic income, there will be no need to bother. If there's no UBI, then chaos will erupt. You can't keep up with AI anyway. AI will be beyond you. It will be like God and we may as well worship it as one. Maybe they will be more benevolent than our current batch of Elites.

 

[Grav]

I don't see how a UBI would work in the US at least. The money would have to come from somewhere and those somebodies have a major incentive to not pay that money. Move the HQ offshore and get politicians in place who will do your bidding like today, it's done at the state level and some at the national level. They have no desire to pay out when they lay off workers now. I like the idea but the funding on a national scale doesn't look solid.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

What should I learn? Any online classes or courses that you recommend?

Coding! That's what's behind AI.

 

[sserafim]

I don't think we can prepare fo it as it is going to bring the next industrial revolution.
I would say stay informed. Watch news about AI.
And don't pick a career in IT, programming, graphic design, and especially accounting.

What careers do you think I should pick/are safe? I have a degree in the science part of STEM

Coding! That's what's behind AI.

Which languages? I learned some in college (Python and R) but forgot all of it lol. I haven't used it since

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Which languages? I learned some in college (Python and R) but forgot all of it lol. I haven't used it since

Idk much about coding (unfortunately) and which language is the best to code AIs.

 

[Scythe]

I am preparing for AI fallout by commiting suicide before AI starts mass replacing jobs.

You career in STEM should be safe actually. Way safer than artistic jobs or repetitive tasks.

 

[sserafim]

With universal basic income, there will be no need to bother. If there's no UBI, then chaos will erupt. You can't keep up with AI anyway. AI will be beyond you. It will be like God and we may as well worship it as one. Maybe they will be more benevolent than our current batch of Elites.

I don't see UBI ever being implemented. That's far too utopian for America. What kind of chaos?

 

[Final_Choice]

Which languages? I learned some in college (Python and R) but forgot all of it lol. I haven't used it since

Usually in python for this type of stuff, I've seen C++ used a lot as well.

 

[sserafim]

I don't see how a UBI would work in the US at least. The money would have to come from somewhere and those somebodies have a major incentive to not pay that money. Move the HQ offshore and get politicians in place who will do your bidding like today, it's done at the state level and some at the national level. They have no desire to pay out when they lay off workers now. I like the idea but the funding on a national scale doesn't look solid.

Same. UBI is a far too utopian and idealistic idea. I don't think that it'll ever be implemented in reality

 

[Ambivalent1]

I don't see UBI ever being implemented. That's far too utopian for America. What kind of chaos?

Societal collapse when people have no money to buy what they need

 

[Meteora]

Personally, I just follow the common sense. I try not to consume too much online media, make sure the sources where I read the news are trustable. I m scared of this AI development to be honest, it might make people even dumber than they already are.

 

[Tiny Little Tree]

Play around with it, read about it, stuff like that. Depends on what you want out of it. Just "AI" is more of a buzzword for any program which works dynamically or autonomously at least to a certain extent. Spam filters on your email, for example, is usually made with machine learning and therefore is an AI, though spam filter won't take over the world alone.

Yeah... there is the technical definition of AI which is pretty much anything where a computer gives you an answer. There are definitely startups that have raised hundreds and thousands of dollars calling their thing "AI" when it has more in common with stats and optimisation techniques that have been around for at least a couple more decades than what's hot in the news (they've definitely done original work, don't get me wrong).

Which languages? I learned some in college (Python and R) but forgot all of it lol. I haven't used it since

Python will likely have a library for everything you'd want to do. A lot of people find it easy to learn and it's used for teaching a lot. I've always found R clunky, by no means bad.
It'd be easy relearn the syntax, I think the key is remember the stuff it has that makes your life easier, the right tool for the job, use it how it's meant to be used e.g. too many times I've seen people just do for loops when they could've used a list comprehension.
Jupyter notebooks might be helpful, keep things neat and tidy and do things one step at a time, you can use them within Visual Studio Code with the extension.
Next steps maybe familiarise yourself with the common libraries. NumPy and pandas will have the data structures you'll use, just make sure you know what like an np array or pandas dataframe looks like and how to do basic manipulations with them, I think these are the kind of things you can pick up when you run into them and they'll make more sense then.
If you did science, you must've had to do at least linear and logistic regression somewhere, maybe learn how to those in Python. I'm sure Scikit-Learn will have what you need.
It wouldn't hurt to take a look and play around with the other models available in Scikit-Learn just to fill your toolbelt.
If you want to get into deep learning just start with a tutorial for one of the frameworks like Keras making sure you know how to go through the whole process. Sometimes loading a state of the art model that's kinda related to what your doing then just training it on your data can be "good enough" or at least a good starting point.
Really understanding what you're doing (or someone else if you want to read papers and whatnot) might need a lot of math...

Usually in python for this type of stuff, I've seen C++ used a lot as well.

Quite a few companies use C# which has ML.NET but C++ still comes up for sure.

 

[Pluto]