
Ask HN: Is AI overcrowded? Where should one look to be useful - poiuytrewq1
I&#x27;m thinking about what to major in college and ultimately what to do with my life and have concluded that AI is one of the most important things one could work on and I also have quite an interest in it, I also find robotics fascinating. The only thing I&#x27;m concerned about is that it is extremely popular at the moment and possibly oversaturated. This brings up issues such as marginal effort. If the field really is overcrowded, then what difference am I really making by just joining in? Looking at the future and trying to predict anything with great success is incredibly hard, but it seems like the most important things for this century are AI, aging&#x2F;bio&#x2F;health, energy and development of space.<p>Now I could be completely wrong on this, but it seems like energy is being taken care of. Simple economics will create a demand for renewables and there does&#x27;t seem to be a shortage of people working on solar, wind, water, storage, fission. Maybe fusion is worth looking at but I feel like the energy crisis will be solved by the others and fusion would be an added benefit. Biotech is an interesting area which I haven&#x27;t considered, but it seems like computers &#x2F; AI will be the major useful tool in this area also (this could be wrong, I&#x27;ve just read that biology is really data heavy). Space development is pretty broad, chemical rockets have been maxed out and the main differentiating factor between companies now is software (raptor engines pretty much hit the limit for chemical engines). And really any of the other fields mentioned (AI, biotech, energy) would be useful to work on if one was interested in space development.<p>Basically, I&#x27;m at a crossroads and really just want to be useful. As an experiment, if you could decide the trajectory of a freshmen interested in these things and wanting to have a positive impact, where would you suggest they go?
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lee101
What I did was to use ai to solve a problem in one of those upcoming areas I
thought would become important (crypto currency trading in my case), I created
a forecasting/ai prediction system, with a stats dashboard
[https://bitbank.nz](https://bitbank.nz), I charge a subscription fee and am
transparent about the accuracy over time to build a long term loyalty.

This strategy worked well for me, use standard machine learning techniques to
solve an existing problem, make the system as easy to interact with as
possible, UI, API ect. Try to gather the customers data for them because a lot
of machine learning is getting a good size dataset and aggressively training a
flexible model on it. a good dataset can reduce friction if your customers can
simply sign up and see value straight away.

I'd say (biased) do what I did... major in compsci which keeps things
flexible, do your own research and create your own company to break into the
ai/machine learning space which can be hard to get practical experience in for
a new grad

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chatmasta
It seems like you’re at a crossroads now, but trust me, you’re not. You are at
the very beginning of your career. The best thing you can do is learn and
absorb as much as you can.

My advice is to take a breadth of classes and see what you like the most.
Learning is easier and more effective when you are excited about the subject.
Prioritize finding your passion, and everything will follow. Stay calm and
don’t stress; you’ll be fine.

Also, don’t neglect the fun parts of college. Make lots of friends, experience
life together. You’ll never have a chance to meet as many interesting people
as you do in college, and many of them will be your friends for life. My CS
education was valuable, yes. But what I remember from college is not nights
doing homework; it’s the time I spent with friends, and athletics. Not only
that, but in the four years since college, every career opportunity I’ve had
has been a result of connections made in school.

Get the work done, learn a lot, and get to know as many people as you can.

~~~
matt_the_bass
I think “see what you like most” is the take home. You’re probably going to
spend most of your life working. So make sure it’s working on something you
like.

