[yorwba]

> individual lone hackers are less likely to be using ML to achieve superman-type powers than I originally thought

For a single individual to have "superhuman" impact with ML, they need not only generic ML knowledge, but also specialized knowledge of some domain they want to impact. Actually, because ML has become so generic (just grab a pre-trained model, maybe fine-tune it, and push your data through it) a very shallow understanding of the fundamentals is probably enough, and in-depth domain knowledge much more important.

That doesn't mean generic ML research isn't important, it's just that it has an average impact on everything, not a huge impact in one specific area.

(I suspect many hobbyist ML projects are about generating entertaining content because everyone has experience with entertainment, even ML researchers.)

[counters]

!00% nailed it. ML/AI are tools. As in any other exercise, tools can make it easier for beginners/amateurs to engage with a project, but they don't replace 10,000 hours of experience and deep domain experience and understanding. It's the master craftsmen and domain experts who will create the most value with these tools, but that may not be in obvious or clearly visible ways.

[np_tedious]

They also likely need a lot of training data and compute resources