This morning I headed into work on my bike and then to the company gym where I usually start my day. Keeping with my early-rising habit I developed over the Christmas break I found myself there earlier than usual. I expected the gym to be packed with those seeking to lose a bit of weight gained over the Holidays. Nope, it felt really empty. Perhaps the idea of making and then breaking resolutions has gotten to the point where the new trend is to not make them in the first place. I hope I am wrong about that as the new year is always a great time to reflect on how we can improve ourselves.
On Sunday my wife asked if I had set any goals or resolutions and I had to confess that I have not made the effort yet. I sort of have a few ideas that carry forward from previous years like skiing more and dropping a bit of weight. So far I have started the year off right as I am down a few pounds which is a freaking miracle considering all of the feasting most people do during the holidays. I have also come back to work with a sore body from skiing so much over the break.
In this vein of looking at ways of improving myself over the next 12 months, I think I would like to learn a new technical skill or two. I have a very strong understanding of relational database systems and have even dabbled with other database technologies. Therefore those are not good areas to expand. Instead I should look at where my weaknesses are and set some goals to improve those parts of my professional skill set. I have used both Amazon's (AWS) and Google's (GCP) cloud platforms but could definitely improve there. Our company has a learning portal and should probably leverage it first and then fill in any shortcomings with a local conference.
Another area I would like to focus some effort is improving my artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge. Last year I ran through a Reinforcement Learning book and learned a lot. The book wasn't all that great but I did enjoy the code segments and doing the examples. There are a number of new AI tools emerging and I will try to find one that catches my interest and do something with it.
Finally I want to do more with gaming technology. I have dabbled with the Unity game engine but think I could learn a lot by learning Unreal as well. There are so many samples and tutorials that it would be good to spend an extra hour on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings hanging out at the office and building something interesting.
While it is nice to create a list of improvements, be sure to write them down. Someone once said that a goal not written is just a wish. If you want the wish to come true, start by writing it down and then coming up with a plan. I have the starting part down, now I should follow through and make a proper plan for each of these resolutions. Good luck on your own New Year's Resolutions.
Showing posts with label Reinforcement Learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reinforcement Learning. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Monday, November 11, 2019
AI: The Next Big Tech Trend
About 30 years ago everyone thought that artificial intelligence (AI) would be the next big thing. Companies invested in expert systems only to discover they didn't have much power and we had a long ways to go before we could do anything really spectacular. Now it seems like you can't click through a website without hearing about AI, machine learning (ML), or deep learning (DL). This leads one to ask if AI really is the next big thing.
This morning I came across 2 articles on AI that I felt merited reading. The first talked about a new form of machine learning where the program or agent is given the freedom to explore new ideas randomly instead of being rewarded for achieving some goal. Should a goal be reached, the agent stores the steps necessary to repeat the process. If a more efficient way of achieving that goal is found, the memory is overwritten with the better steps. The reason this is of interest to me is that is has been used to play several computer games successfully when other AI agents based on reinforcement learning have failed. Interestingly this is how some of our most successful innovations have emerged: thinking about novel ways of solving an existing problem.
The second article I read today came from a consulting organization talking about how AI is going to revolutionize our economy. While they admit that a number of jobs will be replaced by AI, they also point out that a higher number of jobs are being created to implement it than those being lost. The article then went on to estimate the amount of money being spent developing and using AI. It is not a small number.
My takeaway from both articles is that the field of artificial intelligence is getting a lot of interest and is showing the same promise that the personal computer industry had 30 years ago. There are also a lot of new ideas in AI and it will be an area of tremendous innovation. If I had a son or daughter headed off to college and wondering where the money is, I would definitely steer him or her towards AI.
This morning I came across 2 articles on AI that I felt merited reading. The first talked about a new form of machine learning where the program or agent is given the freedom to explore new ideas randomly instead of being rewarded for achieving some goal. Should a goal be reached, the agent stores the steps necessary to repeat the process. If a more efficient way of achieving that goal is found, the memory is overwritten with the better steps. The reason this is of interest to me is that is has been used to play several computer games successfully when other AI agents based on reinforcement learning have failed. Interestingly this is how some of our most successful innovations have emerged: thinking about novel ways of solving an existing problem.
The second article I read today came from a consulting organization talking about how AI is going to revolutionize our economy. While they admit that a number of jobs will be replaced by AI, they also point out that a higher number of jobs are being created to implement it than those being lost. The article then went on to estimate the amount of money being spent developing and using AI. It is not a small number.
My takeaway from both articles is that the field of artificial intelligence is getting a lot of interest and is showing the same promise that the personal computer industry had 30 years ago. There are also a lot of new ideas in AI and it will be an area of tremendous innovation. If I had a son or daughter headed off to college and wondering where the money is, I would definitely steer him or her towards AI.
Friday, October 26, 2018
We Learn by Doing
Thursday I spent the afternoon in a First Aid, CPR, and AED class. My office provided it free of charge to those of us willing to take the time to get trained and certified. This is something I try to do every couple of years but had let my certification lapse. One important thing I took away from the course is the importance of practice.
CPR is one of those skills that everyone should know but nobody should ever want to have to use. I have a close friend who had to use it on a work associate. Things worked out and the person survived. My buddy went to visit him in the hospital and apologized for breaking the guy's ribs. The survivor didn't mind as being alive sure beats being dead.
I have practiced CPR on a purpose built dummy but it is always good to get a refresher. Everyone in my class on Thursday had his or her own practice dummy and we all simulated giving CPR at the same time. While it is not the same as doing it on a real person, it is a lot better than simply talking about the procedure.
So what does this have to do with computers and technology? Lots. I am currently going through a book on Reinforcement Learning (a sub-topic of Machine Learning) and there are a lot of examples in it. Rather than simply reading about the process, it is important to work with a computer at the same time I am going through the book. Practicing what I read is really vital to my understanding of the topic. So if you find yourself trying to learn a new technology, don't just read about it, practice using it and you will learn more in the process.
CPR is one of those skills that everyone should know but nobody should ever want to have to use. I have a close friend who had to use it on a work associate. Things worked out and the person survived. My buddy went to visit him in the hospital and apologized for breaking the guy's ribs. The survivor didn't mind as being alive sure beats being dead.
I have practiced CPR on a purpose built dummy but it is always good to get a refresher. Everyone in my class on Thursday had his or her own practice dummy and we all simulated giving CPR at the same time. While it is not the same as doing it on a real person, it is a lot better than simply talking about the procedure.
So what does this have to do with computers and technology? Lots. I am currently going through a book on Reinforcement Learning (a sub-topic of Machine Learning) and there are a lot of examples in it. Rather than simply reading about the process, it is important to work with a computer at the same time I am going through the book. Practicing what I read is really vital to my understanding of the topic. So if you find yourself trying to learn a new technology, don't just read about it, practice using it and you will learn more in the process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
