How I Stay Up to Date with The Latest in AI 💻 📝

Tips on navigating the ever-shifting currents of AI. Plus fantastic resources you’ll want to bookmark.

Natasha
11 min readMay 28, 2023

A few years ago, in the dimly lit corridors of academia, I found myself in the presence of a wise old professor. His office, cluttered with stacks of yellowed books and weathered manuscripts, exuded an air of mysterious knowledge that piqued my curiosity.

Seated behind a desk adorned with fading photographs and an antique globe, the professor regarded me with eyes that had witnessed a lifetime of intellectual pursuits. “My dear student,” he began in a voice that carried the weight of wisdom, “tell me, how do you intend to keep pace with the relentless march of progress in the realm of artificial intelligence?”

Caught off guard by the question, I hesitated for a moment, keenly aware of my limited grasp on the ever-evolving landscape of AI. Summoning my courage, I responded, “Professor, I believe my studies and occasional perusal of AI-related news will suffice.”

A knowing smile played at the corners of his lips as he leaned back in his well-worn leather chair. “Ah, my dear student,” he replied, “while your studies lay the foundation, true enlightenment lies in staying attuned to the winds of change. Allow me to share with you a tale.”

“…while your studies lay the foundation, true enlightenment lies in staying attuned to the winds of change. Allow me to share with you a tale.”

With a gentle gesture, he drew my attention to the sepia-toned photograph of a scholarly figure from a bygone era. The professor recounted the story of a relentless seeker of knowledge, a scholar who immersed himself in ancient manuscripts by day and gazed at the twinkling stars by night. This scholar’s insatiable thirst for wisdom fostered connections between disparate realms, birthing a revolutionary understanding of the world.

As the professor concluded his tale, I found myself enraptured, my mind teeming with possibilities. His wrinkled hand reached for a yellowed piece of parchment, upon which he had meticulously transcribed a compendium of AI conferences, recommended reading, and digital repositories of knowledge. “Embrace these resources, my eager pupil,” he urged, “for within their depths lie the secrets to navigating the ever-shifting currents of AI.”

With gratitude etched upon my face, I bid the professor farewell, stepping out into a world infused with newfound purpose. Like that visionary scholar in ancient times, I would seek to unravel the mysteries of AI, weaving together disparate strands of knowledge to form a tapestry of understanding.

…weaving together disparate strands of knowledge to form a tapestry of understanding.

Inspired by the professor’s guidance, I embarked on a transformative odyssey to chart my course through the ever-changing seas of AI. In the paragraphs that follow, I will illuminate the strategies I discovered — those that kept me afloat amidst the waves of progress. By immersing myself in the vibrant AI community, curating a kaleidoscope of AI resources, delving into research papers with fervour, embracing online platforms that expanded my horizons, pursuing hands-on projects with unwavering determination, and following the trailblazers of AI thought, I have unearthed treasures of insight and sharpened the tools of my craft.

Together, let us traverse the realms of curiosity, for within them, we shall unlock the boundless possibilities that await those who dare to stay up to date with the latest in AI.

Gif Created by the author. May 2023

Embrace the AI Community

Engaging with the AI community is essential for staying up to date in the field. It fosters knowledge exchange, collaboration, and networking, enabling individuals to access diverse perspectives and cutting-edge insights. The AI community provides a platform for sharing ideas, discussing challenges, and discovering new opportunities. By actively participating, individuals can stay informed about the latest advancements, discover novel approaches, and establish connections with like-minded professionals, ultimately fuelling personal growth and contributing to the collective progress of the AI community. Discover more at this link: Top AI Communities in 2023

Curate Your News Feed

Curating a personalized news feed is significant as it allows individuals to tailor their AI-related information intake. By selecting reputable sources and filtering content based on their interests and preferences, individuals can efficiently stay informed about the latest developments in AI. This approach saves time by eliminating irrelevant or duplicate information and ensures they receive high-quality, relevant updates. A curated news feed ensures a focused, customized flow of AI news, helping individuals stay up to date and deepen their understanding of the specific areas and topics that matter to them.

Dive into Research Papers

Research papers hold immense value in staying up to date with AI. They offer in-depth analysis, novel methodologies, and groundbreaking findings that shape the field. By studying research papers, individuals gain direct access to the latest advancements, emerging trends, and cutting-edge techniques. These papers provide a comprehensive understanding of AI concepts and contribute to the knowledge base of the community. Engaging with research papers fosters intellectual growth, allows individuals to contribute to the scientific discourse, and helps them stay at the forefront of AI advancements.

Explore Online Learning Platforms

Online learning platforms play a crucial role in continuous education in AI. They offer flexible, accessible, and comprehensive courses that cater to learners of all levels. These platforms provide curated content, interactive exercises, and practical assignments, allowing individuals to acquire and refine their AI skills at their own pace. With a wide range of topics and expert instructors, online learning platforms empower learners to stay updated with the latest AI concepts, tools, and algorithms, enabling them to advance their careers and contribute to the ever-evolving field of artificial intelligence.

Engage in Hands-On Projects

Hands-on projects hold significant importance in AI learning. They provide practical application of theoretical knowledge, allowing learners to gain valuable experience in implementing AI algorithms, working with datasets, and solving real-world problems. Hands-on projects foster critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and creativity in finding AI solutions. By engaging in hands-on projects, individuals develop a deeper understanding of AI concepts, refine their technical skills, and build a portfolio of tangible work, enhancing their employability and enabling them to contribute effectively to the AI field.

Follow Influential AI Thought Leaders

Following influential AI thought leaders is of paramount importance. These individuals possess deep expertise, visionary perspectives, and groundbreaking insights that shape the direction of the field. By keeping abreast of their ideas, research, and commentary, learners gain access to the forefront of AI knowledge. Thought leaders inspire critical thinking, challenge existing paradigms, and provide valuable guidance. Their thought-provoking contributions stimulate intellectual growth, encourage innovation, and help individuals navigate the evolving landscape of AI, ultimately propelling personal and professional development in this dynamic field.

Curated List of Resources

  1. Towards Data Science Inc — 662,561 Followers on Medium (Community)
  2. DataDrivenInvestor (DDI) — 61K Followers on Medium (Community)
  3. Analytics Vidhya — 58K Followers on Medium (Community)
  4. Becoming Human: Artificial Intelligence Magazine 40K Followers on Medium (Community)
  5. Towards AI — 385K Followers on Medium (Community)
  6. Predict — 26K Followers on Medium (Community)
  7. Geek Culture — 30K Followers on Medium (Community)
  8. MLearning.ai — 5k Followers on Medium (Community)
  9. Python in Plain English — 14.9K Followers on Medium (Community)
  10. Top AI Communities in 2023 (List of Communities)
  11. Kaggle: A community of data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts(Community)
  12. Hugging Face: The AI community building the future(Community)
  13. The Batch(News Feed/Newsletter)
  14. KDnuggets News (News Feed/Newsletter)
  15. Alpha Signal(News Feed/Newsletter)
  16. AI weekly(News Feed/Newsletter)
  17. The Sequence(News Feed/Newsletter)
  18. Paper with Code Newsletter (News Feed/Newsletter)
  19. Last Week in AI (News Feed/Newsletter)
  20. Deep Grit (News Feed/Newsletter)
  21. O’Reilly Data Newsletter(News Feed/Newsletter)
  22. Machine Learning Mastery(News Feed/Newsletter)
  23. Attention Is All You Need by Vaswani et al. (2017) — Introduces the Transformer model, a pivotal advancement in natural language processing and machine translation. — (Research Paper)
  24. Generative Adversarial Networks by Goodfellow et al. (2014) — Proposes the GAN framework, which has revolutionized the field of generative modeling. — (Research Paper)
  25. Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition by He et al. (2015) — Introduces the ResNet architecture, enabling the training of deep neural networks with hundreds of layers. — (Research Paper)
  26. BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding by Devlin et al. (2018) — Presents a breakthrough in NLP with the BERT model, achieving state-of-the-art performance on various language understanding tasks. — (Research Paper)
  27. A Few-Shot Learning Approach to Natural Language Processing by Lake et al. (2015) — Explores the use of few-shot learning techniques in NLP, demonstrating the ability to learn new tasks with limited training examples. — (Research Paper)
  28. ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks by Krizhevsky et al. (2012) — Introduces the influential AlexNet architecture, which significantly advanced image classification performance using deep convolutional neural networks. — (Research Paper)
  29. Reinforcement Learning by Sutton and Barto (1998) — Provides a comprehensive introduction to reinforcement learning algorithms and frameworks. — (Research Paper)
  30. DeepFace: Closing the Gap to Human-Level Performance in Face Verification by Taigman et al. (2014) — Presents a deep learning model that achieves remarkable accuracy in face verification tasks. — (Research Paper)
  31. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks by Karpathy et al. (2015) — Explores the power of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) in generating text and their ability to capture sequential patterns. — (Research Paper)
  32. DeepSpeech: Scaling up End-to-End Speech Recognition by Hannun et al. (2014) — Introduces an end-to-end, deep learning-based speech recognition system that achieves state-of-the-art performance. — (Research Paper)
  33. Coursera (www.coursera.org) — (Online Learning Platform)
  34. edX (www.edx.org) — (Online Learning Platform)
  35. Udacity (www.udacity.com) — (Online Learning Platform)
  36. DeepLearning.ai (www.deeplearning.ai) — (Online Learning Platform)
  37. DataCamp (www.datacamp.com) — (Online Learning Platform)
  38. Kaggle (www.kaggle.com) — (Online Learning Platform)
  39. Fast.ai (www.fast.ai) — (Online Learning Platform)
  40. Stanford Online (online.stanford.edu) — (Online Learning Platform)
  41. MIT OpenCourseWare (ocw.mit.edu) — (Online Learning Platform)
  42. Udemy (www.udemy.com) — (Online Learning Platform)
  43. LinkedIn Learning (www.linkedin.com/learning) — (Online Learning Platform)
  44. Google AI Education (ai.google/education) — (Online Learning Platform)
  45. IBM Skills (www.ibm.com/training) — (Online Learning Platform)
  46. Microsoft Learn (learn.microsoft.com) — (Online Learning Platform)
  47. NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (www.nvidia.com/dli) — (Online Learning Platform)
  48. PyTorch (pytorch.org) — Offers tutorials and resources specific to PyTorch framework. — (Online Learning Platform)
  49. TensorFlow (www.tensorflow.org) — Provides comprehensive resources and tutorials for TensorFlow framework. — (Online Learning Platform)
  50. Dataquest (www.dataquest.io) — Focuses on practical data science and offers courses in Machine Learning and AI. — (Online Learning Platform)
  51. Oxford Deep NLP (www.cs.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/2016-2017/dl) — Provides Deep Learning and NLP courses by the University of Oxford. — (Online Learning Platform)
  52. Berkeley AI Research (bair.berkeley.edu/resources) — Offers resources, lecture slides, and course materials from UC Berkeley’s AI research group. — (Online Learning Platform)
  53. Kaggle (www.kaggle.com) — (Hands-On Projects)
  54. Fast.ai (www.fast.ai) — (Hands-On Projects)
  55. OpenAI Gym (gym.openai.com) — (Hands-On Projects)
  56. Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow (book by Aurélien Géron) — (Hands-On Projects)
  57. DataCamp (www.datacamp.com) — (Hands-On Projects)
  58. GitHub (github.com) — (Hands-On Projects)
  59. Hugging Face (huggingface.co) — (Hands-On Projects)
  60. NVIDIA Deep Learning Examples (developer.nvidia.com/deep-learning-examples) — (Hands-On Projects)
  61. Andrew Ng — Co-founder of Coursera and deeplearning.ai, former chief scientist at Baidu, and one of the pioneers in deep learning and AI education. -(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  62. Fei-Fei Li — Co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) and a leading expert in computer vision and AI ethics.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  63. Yann LeCun — Chief AI Scientist at Facebook and a key contributor to the development of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and deep learning.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  64. Yoshua Bengio — A prominent researcher in deep learning and co-founder of Element AI. Bengio has made significant contributions to the field of neural networks.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  65. Demis Hassabis — Co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, a company known for its groundbreaking AI research and the development of AlphaGo.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  66. Geoffrey Hinton — A leading figure in deep learning and neural networks. Hinton’s work has had a profound impact on the development of AI, particularly in the area of deep neural networks.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  67. Kate Crawford — A prominent researcher and scholar focusing on the social and ethical implications of AI and machine learning.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  68. Timnit Gebru — An advocate for ethical AI and co-founder of the Black in AI initiative. Gebru’s work has shed light on bias and fairness issues in AI systems.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  69. Jeff Dean — Senior Fellow at Google Research and head of Google AI. Dean has been instrumental in driving advancements in AI, including the development of TensorFlow.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  70. Kai-Fu Lee — A leading AI investor, technologist, and author who has held executive positions at companies like Google and Microsoft. Lee has been a vocal advocate for AI development and its societal impact.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  71. Raj Reddy — A computer science and AI pioneer, Reddy has made significant contributions to the field, particularly in speech recognition and AI applications in education.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  72. Daphne Koller — Co-founder of Coursera and a leading AI researcher known for her work in probabilistic graphical models and machine learning.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  73. Stuart Russell — A renowned AI researcher and author of the textbook “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.” Russell’s work focuses on human-compatible AI and AI ethics.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  74. Yoshua Bengio — A repeat mention due to his continued impact, Bengio is a leading researcher in deep learning, co-founder of Element AI, and recipient of the prestigious Turing Award.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  75. Rodney Brooks — A roboticist and entrepreneur, Brooks co-founded iRobot and developed influential robots like the Roomba. His work has focused on robot autonomy and behavior-based AI systems.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  76. Eric Schmidt — Former CEO of Google and executive chairman of Alphabet. Schmidt played a crucial role in the development and growth of Google’s AI initiatives, advancing technologies like search algorithms and machine learning.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  77. Daniel Huttenlocher — An expert in computer vision and artificial intelligence, Huttenlocher has made significant contributions to the field as the dean of Cornell Tech and through his research on computational models of visual recognition.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  78. Ruha Benjamin — A scholar and author, Benjamin focuses on the social implications of AI and technology, examining issues related to race, bias, and ethics in algorithmic systems.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  79. Seth Lloyd — A quantum physicist and researcher, Lloyd’s work explores the intersection of quantum mechanics and computation, including the potential applications of quantum computing in AI.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)
  80. Stuart Russell — Renowned AI researcher and co-author of the textbook “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.” Russell’s work focuses on human-compatible AI and AI ethics, advocating for the development of AI systems that align with human values.-(Influential AI Thought Leaders)

Final Words

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