I've got a question. I'm having a bit of trouble phrasing it, so please don't assume I'm against learning for learning's sake, that's not the point.
Whenever I've tried to learn about LLMs, machine learning, etc. I always come out with a bad feeling, compared to learning about software.
Theoretical courses make me feel like it's all baby steps, unless you assume a level of commitment equivalent to a math degree. Practical/applied stuff seems to require levels of compute, training data, etc. that make it unapproachable for a home hacker for everything beyond basic exercises like a handwritten digit classifier.
Now this feeling of "impracticality" is perfectly fine. It would be the expected outcome if I was taking a course on classic literature or modern art. But machine learning stuff feels like it could have room for learning-by-doing applications that aren't entirely pointless, so I wonder if there's some way to approach the topic I'm simply not finding.
Did anyone have the same experience? any tips if so?
I got his book Build Your Own LLM From Scratch and it's super readable and does a great job at holding your hand through the entire process...need to finish reading it though!
I don't like working with neural networks and I always found everything overcomplicated or oversimplified, sometimes both at the same time.
But this book is almost perfect. Every new concept is well described and every is well founded. And every step moves you forward (if you know, you know)
I like it too. Haven't got very far through it yet but just learning about how to use PyTorch and finally getting how back propagation works via autograd etc. was really fun and enlightening.
This is an essential resource and his book is a must read from this author. I have the upmost respect for Raschka for his research and detailed explanations in AI including him dissecting research papers.
I’ve read, worked through, and watched his LLM book as well as this one! Things finally clicked, can’t recommend both books enough—his pedagogy is great (at least for me).
I just started reading his book, and he makes it easy to grasp difficult concepts. As a matter of fact, I have been working on platform where you can learn how AI models work in an interactive manner.
I'm a bit confused as to who this is for - apart from learning how the tech works that is.
If you're truly going to build your own model (and commit to the cost of that), then video tutorials will not cut it.
And if you don't really, then I wonder if this is really the best style of conveying the information you'd be interested in?
I mean I might be wrong and maybe this helps emerging players or something like that, but to me it is more likely that this is more of a monetisation strategy of a personal brand. Living off selling to people that think they _should_ but then in the end don't.
Why teach people to play guitar once a week if they won't be a new Jimi Hendrix? Why teach people to run if they won't be a new Usain Bolt?
Maybe because they don't want to be an "emerging player" or something, they only want to understand how a new technology that is changing the world works and prefer to learn by doing.
If Sebastian is doing it by its personal brand, he really deserves it. I would trust him because I know he is a reference on his area of knowledge and I know he is because he shares his knowledge instead of only making fancy talks.
Let’s not be this negative, we might be going towards a new direction with technology that could allow small teams to build their own models. Maybe not frontier models. Maybe not close to the others in generalized benchmarks. But perhaps they could be really specialized into solving one particular problem better than the others.
If you're truly going to build your own model (and commit to the cost of that), then video tutorials will not cut it.
That makes no sense. It's like saying if you want an engineering degree, going to lectures will not cut it. Of course not, you have to do the homework and projects too.
You're right about me not being the target audience, but you're wrong about the second sentence I think.
The target audience of this is for people that like to _think_ they're doing stuff by paying for it, to then not do anything.
It's a purchase of an identity, basically.
Which.. I guess is fine as something to cover Sebastian's expenses to enable him to keep delivering this free stuff. If you want to take money from someone, taking from this group is likely the most ethical thing to do.
"I know I'm not the target audience and I don't have any interest in how things work, but let me tell you how you're wrong by telling you who the actual target audience is"
What's next? Are you going to give us your opinion of music genres you don't ever listen to? And tell us who should listen to them too, I suppose.
You sound like you are projecting a bunch of motivations and assumptions about character onto other people. But you projecting such things onto another person is a terrible way to begin to understand something.
There are genuinely people who enjoy learning how something works by doing smaller scale versions of it themselves. This site happens to have a much higher average percentage of them than most other places.
Whenever I've tried to learn about LLMs, machine learning, etc. I always come out with a bad feeling, compared to learning about software.
Theoretical courses make me feel like it's all baby steps, unless you assume a level of commitment equivalent to a math degree. Practical/applied stuff seems to require levels of compute, training data, etc. that make it unapproachable for a home hacker for everything beyond basic exercises like a handwritten digit classifier.
Now this feeling of "impracticality" is perfectly fine. It would be the expected outcome if I was taking a course on classic literature or modern art. But machine learning stuff feels like it could have room for learning-by-doing applications that aren't entirely pointless, so I wonder if there's some way to approach the topic I'm simply not finding.
Did anyone have the same experience? any tips if so?
But this book is almost perfect. Every new concept is well described and every is well founded. And every step moves you forward (if you know, you know)
If you're truly going to build your own model (and commit to the cost of that), then video tutorials will not cut it.
And if you don't really, then I wonder if this is really the best style of conveying the information you'd be interested in?
I mean I might be wrong and maybe this helps emerging players or something like that, but to me it is more likely that this is more of a monetisation strategy of a personal brand. Living off selling to people that think they _should_ but then in the end don't.
Maybe because they don't want to be an "emerging player" or something, they only want to understand how a new technology that is changing the world works and prefer to learn by doing.
If Sebastian is doing it by its personal brand, he really deserves it. I would trust him because I know he is a reference on his area of knowledge and I know he is because he shares his knowledge instead of only making fancy talks.
It's also not a bad foundation for people who want to understand how these things are trained and work.
some people enjoy learning how the tech works
It's a critique of the people and the lack of substance. But not of the author. The author is highly capable.
That makes no sense. It's like saying if you want an engineering degree, going to lectures will not cut it. Of course not, you have to do the homework and projects too.
Something is off here. It indeed makes no sense
The target audience of this is for people that like to _think_ they're doing stuff by paying for it, to then not do anything.
It's a purchase of an identity, basically.
Which.. I guess is fine as something to cover Sebastian's expenses to enable him to keep delivering this free stuff. If you want to take money from someone, taking from this group is likely the most ethical thing to do.
What's next? Are you going to give us your opinion of music genres you don't ever listen to? And tell us who should listen to them too, I suppose.
He is covering expenses. Probably barely.
It seems that you want to oppose something really badly today, but you're struggling to find something that makes sense for more than 5 minutes.
There are genuinely people who enjoy learning how something works by doing smaller scale versions of it themselves. This site happens to have a much higher average percentage of them than most other places.