What makes an expert in AI?

[vivid cedar]

As for me it is neither of those, it's how we use them. My mentor once told me that the way we think for a solution is what makes us different from the rest.

[vivid cedar]

Depends from person to person, like we all know for any problem there are n number of solutions and approaches, it's the approach that differents I believe

I may be wrong too ig

[heavy anvil]

The difference is only in the knowledge base and ability to generalize IMO. They know a lot and they apply analogies across thar knowledge base.

They are not "smarter" than everyone else. They are just smart and in a position where they spend most of their time thinking about problems.

Just like celebrities - they are just famous (usually by chance) and (sometimes) good-looking, otherwise they are no different than other people.

Don't mentally elevate famous people to some sort of demi-godhood. They are not much better than you or me.

Being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing (fundamental research) is what made them into the famous people they are.

[vivid cedar]

Exactly the way they think is what differs from one another

[heavy anvil]

I think it's not so much the way they think, as much as it is the fact that they were in a position where they could do fundamental research and they did.

Many people are never in such position and many end up doing non-fundamental research due to circumstances or a sort of mental myopia haha

In academia you might easily end up working under an advisor that wants you to do something applied or super specific

And after you might have to fight for ultra-specific grants

And then there is a component of pure luck and timing

[vivid cedar]

Maybe, but in my experience the way my senior approached and the way I did was entirely different, obv his was better and he thought about most of the issues that might occur. Which will come in handy when you are in a particular field for a longer period. But when I looked into his previous works it showed how he managed to get into that position

[vivid cedar]

True

[heavy anvil]

There are some skills that are never well-taught sadly, like doing things methodically, documenting findings, logging things (super important in research), managing projects.

I think a lot of humans (including me) are really bad at those soft skills and that's a big part of success in academia. But I am not sure it is needed to strike gold so to speak, only to keep on doing it consistently over many years

But even if you have all of the soft skills, the knowledge, and the hard science skills, you still need to be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.