Ask HN: Does it still make sense to learn AI(fundamentals), if so, how?

1 shadowjones 2 7/4/2025, 3:39:26 PM

I've been a fullstack engineer for a few years, tinkered with AI a bit, but I've never seriously studied the fundamentals/theory of it.

From an outsider's perspective, it seems almost useless and too late to actually study AI now. (unless we're talking about how to use LLMs/agents...)

Is there any point in 2025 to go back to school and get a master/PhD or even join a bootcamp in AI/data science when by the time you'd be graduating we could have already reached the singularity?

If you wanted to work in AI and do more than just calling the latest LLMs, how would you approach it?

Comments (2)

freigeist79 · 6h ago

Now is a great time to study AI. LLMs are just big neural networks , understanding how they work is most relevant. Yesterday I trained a small regression model on text embeddings for LLM preprocessing, classic ML is still very much in use. So it’s not too late at all. The fundamentals matter more than ever if you want to go beyond just calling APIs.

checker659 · 3h ago

https://d2l.ai

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Ask HN: Does it still make sense to learn AI(fundamentals), if so, how?

Comments (2)