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I considered a PhD in machine learning. It’s mostly downsides. Granted, most fields are not like this but: 1) The field moves too fast to focus on a single thi
by janalsncm 2y ago
I considered a PhD in machine learning. It’s mostly downsides. Granted, most fields are not like this but:
1) The field moves too fast to focus on a single thing for 4 years. A lot of people were devastated when ChatGPT essentially solved their NLP tasks.
2) Cutting edge NLP/vision research is being done in industrial labs as much as universities. And industry will probably outgun you with equipment (GPUs) and high quality data.
3) Pay sucks. You can make 3-5x working in industry. The opportunity cost could be a half million dollars.
4) You can get a lot out of a Masters in half the time or less.
- marklar423 2y agoWhat sort of benefits come from getting a Masters? Everyone I talk to seems to say a Masters in CompSci is useless, and that you may as well do a PhD instead.
- vkou 2y ago> What sort of benefits come from getting a Masters Google will hire you to work on moving protobufs around as an L4, instead of an L3.
- roland35 2y agoI believe a masters has helped me stand out as a candidate at least. Plus, I learned a great deal about computer engineering! The fundamentals have come in handy.
- janalsncm 2y agoA lot of job requirements that I see ask for Masters or PhD, so you’re hitting the minimum requirement plus giving yourself a shot of having applicable work experience (read: doesn’t write spaghetti code). That said, there’s probably a huge selection bias due to my background.
- teamonkey 2y agoA Masters can help with work visas and gaining residencies in some countries
- lizknope 2y agoMachine learning could be hardware as well. I'm in integrated circuit design and there are lots of custom hardware AI accelerators in development. Almost all of the new grads we hire have a masters degree in electrical or computer engineering (not computer science)
- LouisSayers 2y agoIt helped me get a visa for Italy (I took part in a startup accelerator program). Other than that not much else... I mean you learn things, but you could also learn things from watching YouTube, doing courses and reading books! I've also seen people do PhD's and from the outside it seems like a lot of them did it just for the title - one of my friends though seems to love Academia and is now a professor.
- adastra22 2y agoAs someone who hires, my opinion is the exact opposite. A masters is good, but a PhD is at least a yellow flag.
- zfnmxt 2y ago> PhD is at least a yellow flag. Why?
- adastra22 2y agoUsually an inability to get shit done, too much of a scientist vs. engineer approach (not good in industry outside of very specific jobs), and a personality type that is not an aggressive go-getter. Yellow flag not red because this is a general observation with plenty of exceptions, of course.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoIf I could go back to that age, I'd focus my PhD on actually understanding what's going on in ML models. Industry is always going to be incentivized to build things and not understand, so you can fill in the details. Plus it would be fascinating.
- snats 2y agoyup, if i went to do a PhD interpretability is the only interesting subject for academia IMO right now
- janalsncm 2y agoIt’s not like interpretability research is immune. You could’ve been in year 4 of your degree when Anthropic released their sparse autoencoder research. It’s just less busy because as you correctly note, industry mostly cares about getting the black box to print money. > Plus it would be fascinating You can do research on the weekend even if you’re not in a PhD. I’ve done it. And no one was breathing down my neck to publish it.