[atollstat]

If you are a hacker, you tend to be more driven towards learning techniques (ML, DL etc) to solve a problem at hand rather than just learning a technique and then hunting for a problem which can be solved with it. For example, my motivation for learning ML & any associated statistical methods went through the roof when confronted with a problem of figuring out a better way to identify & predict which devices (from a huge set) would go bust largely based on available indicators like power drain etc. I wouldn't have made the effort to read a bunch of papers & watch relevant videos if I didn't have a problem to solve. Maybe that happens if you've been a code-monkey for 20+ years.