I wouldn't dive in to a full machine learning course as the first step. 1. Watch short tutorials about TensorFlow on Youtube 2. Look for lectures about specif

I wouldn't dive in to a full machine learning course as the first step. 1. Watch short tutorials about TensorFlow on Youtube 2. Look for lectures about specific topics that sound interesting. 3. Read NIPS papers that sound interesting 4. Check out the Deep Learning textbook, but maybe don't read the whole thing ( http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ http://www.deeplearningbook.org/ ) 5. By this point you should have a very rough idea about the current and past states of machine learning. You didn't have to spend any money or put in any exhaustive mental effort. If it still sounds interesting and you are motivated you can try a full online course or buy some paid books.