This thirst for AI has pushed all AI-related courses on Stanford to way over their capacity. CS224N: Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning had more than 700 students. CS231N: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition had the same. According to Justin Johnson, co-instructor of CS231N, the class size is exponentially increasing. At the beginning of the quarter, instructors for both courses desperately scramble to find extra TAs. Even my course, first time offered, taught by an obscure undergraduate student, received 350+ applications for its 20 spots. Many of the students who took these courses aren’t even interested in the subject. They just take those courses because everyone is doing it”

-excerpt from Confession of a so-called AI Expert.

The author, Chip Hyuen, is a third year student and TensorFlow TA at Stanford. She’s got a fab internship at Netflix and a killer writing style. The full article is a must-read, in part so you can fully appreciate the last sentences:

“Maybe one day people would realize that many AI experts are just frauds. Maybe one day students would realize that their time would be better spent learning things they truly care about. Maybe one day I would be out of job and left to die alone on the sidewalk. Or maybe the AI robot that I build would destroy you all. Who knows?”