Whether Starting Out or in Early to Mid-Career, What’s the Best Way to Learn AI?  | 7wData

Whether you are just starting out in the workforce or are in the early- to mid-career stage, you are likely to ask yourself the question at some point, what’s the best way to learn AI?  

Glassdoor at the end of August had over 53,000 job postings that mention machine learning, and 20,000 jobs that include data science at salaries ranging from $50,000 to over $180,000, according to a recent account in TechRepublic.  

One idea is to win a seat in a new residency program in AI and Machine Learning offered by Apple Computer, announced in a report this week from Cnbctv18.com. While the number of seats may be few and the level of expertise required quite a bit beyond early stage, it’s certainly a proven employer.  

The year-long program is seeking applicants with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduate degrees or equivalent industry experience, software development backgrounds, and niche expertise — like design, linguistics, neuroscience, or psychology.  

For the much less experienced, these are hints as to very desired skill sets in AI. Apple is seen as seeking to bolster its presence in areas like speech recognition, analyzing images and parsing natural language text, incorporated in software products such as Siri. 

Learning the vocabulary of AI might be a good step toward selecting how you want to focus. 

The A to Z of AI from Google and Oxford Internet Institute is an entry-level guide to the basics of Artificial Intelligence designed to help anyone get their bearings with a complex topic. The overview calls AI “one of the most complicated areas of computer science,” and while plenty of information is available about AI “it’s not always easy to distinguish fact from fiction.”  

Some Options for Online Learning of AI 

AI jobs are central to new product development and future revenue opportunities, according to the recent account in TechRepublic, which listed what it considers to be the best online courses for data science, including some offering certifications that can boost resumes.     

Many big tech companies and independent tech organizations are offering training programs for people new to data science and professionals who want to learn the newest technology. Here is a selection of recommended programs: 

IBM offers this program on Coursera, which is taught by company employees. Students in this course will take a series of hands-on labs in the IBM cloud that provide experience with Jupyter/JupyterLab, GitHub, R Studio, and Watson Studio. 

 This online program takes about 10 months to complete and has nine courses: 

If you can pass this exam that is in beta, you are Google Cloud Certified. Google recommends that test takers have at least three years of hands-on experience with Google Cloud products and solutions.  

The test lasts four hours and costs $120. 

This vendor-neutral program is for analytics practitioners in the early to mid-stage of their careers. Applicants need a bachelor’s degree and five years of professional experience or a master’s degree with three years of work experience. All candidates for the exam sign an ethics code and must submit a reference from an employer to confirm soft skills. 

The exam is based on the Job Task Analysis and covers seven areas: 

There are 100 multiple-choice questions on the exam.