I got interested of AI around 2017. It wasn’t a long after when I realized the potential of it. I started to believe there is a chance we might create AGI during my lifetime. I also believed it’s so important that any other progress we might do is pointless compared to it.
I wasn’t very confident that it would be me who created it first but companies like OpenAI and DeepMind seemed to have much better chance. I still decided to make it my whole life’s goal to pursue AGI because the way I saw it that if my chance is almost zero, it multiplied with infinite reward of AGI would make it worth more than anything else.
I did all kind of AI related applications and studying for 2-3 years but then started working as a web developer which consumed my time and I spent what was left doing more non-AI projects.
I still had back of my head the dream but there were easier ways to make money which interested me at the time. When ChatGPT came, I almost tried to stay away from it from regret of giving up AI. I still used it almost daily and did some small projects with the API.
2020-2024 I was mainly focused working/understanding startups by building web applications in them. Now I’m starting a new chapter in my life. Instead of being an engineer, I see myself as a scientist. I refound the dream I had and want to be the first to create AGI. Since I came up the goal, I haven’t found anything else that makes more sense to dedicate my life.
Now I have decided to go back to University to get Master’s degree in Data Science. The program will have mostly AI related courses.
I started reading and watching stuff online. I have slightly followed the industry so there weren’t anything shocking. I was surprised how most of the theory I already knew. It’s disappointing how little breakthroughs there has been in new theory. Most progress has been finding new ways to use existing findings.
I don’t have strong opinions yet which part of AI I’m going to focus but I believe reinforcement learning might be the most promising and interesting for me. Transformers seem to be nowadays used in many state of the art applications so I’m going to make sure to understand it well in case it has something that could be applied to other ideas.
I’m going to become more active again online. I want to keep myself accountable by sharing my progress but also share it to show case my skills which at least in the past has led to all kind of great opportunities.