3 ms·
Now is a terrible time to start a PhD in ML. If you do a CS PhD, pick literally any other subfield.
by thwayunion 4y ago
Now is a terrible time to start a PhD in ML. If you do a CS PhD, pick literally any other subfield.
- eddsh1994 4y agoWhy?
- sillysaurusx 4y agoIt's trendy, and in general it's best to avoid trendy fields. But if you actually care about ML -- I think it's one of the best things in the world -- go for it! ML has never been more accessible.
- l33t233372 4y agoTrendy fields often have lots of money in them in both the short term(grants, associateships, funding), and the medium term(first job prospects) as well as benefits like preferential appearance in journals(if two equally insightful articles are up for one spot, would you rather take the article on the topic many are interested in or the article from a much more niche area?) and possibly more low-hanging fruit since there is so much more work to piggyback on/respond to/extend.
- thwayunion 4y agoThe subfield is oversupplied with labor relative to the supply of good ideas worth working on for six years and advising capacity.
- dekhn 4y agobecause the very best machine learning models are distilled from postdoc tears.
- drdunce 4y agoI think every significant model has come from industry. us postdocs just tweak hyperparameters and publish answers to questions about them that no one is ever likely to ask It's like the "will it blend" series, but for machine learning
- Zetobal 4y agoSounds a lot like my dad telling me to go to law school instead of getting into cs. He thought the ultimate goal of cs is to make everyone in the field obsolete... well maybe he was right in the end.
- amelius 4y agoLawyers too (maybe they are first)
- verdverm 4y agoI'd argue that cross field is a good avenue for a PhD in CS. Work in collaboration with one of the sciences. There are plenty of papers to be had in application. Not everything in ML research needs to be algorithms. You'll likely find places where the models break down and need algo work too
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y agoPeople have been saying this for as long as I've been hanging on ML forums, meanwhile the professors I work with can't keep up with industry demand for ML and ML adjacent roles and have to open up new classes.