Over the past five years, researchers in artificial intelligence have become the rock stars of the technology world. A branch of AI known as deep learning, has proven so useful that skilled operators can command six-figure salaries to build software for Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The top names can earn over $1 million a year.
The traditional way to get these jobs has been a Doctor’s degree in computer science from one of America’s top universities. Earning one takes years and requires a person who can be devoted to study, which is rare among normal people. Moreover, graduate students are regularly attracted away from their studies by various high-paid jobs.
That is changing. Last month Fast.ai, an education non-profit based in San Francisco, kicked off the third year of its course in deep learning. Since its beginning it has attracted more than 100,000 students from India to Nigeria. The course comes with a simple idea: there is no need to spend years obtaining a Doctor’s degree in order to practise deep learning. Fast.ai’s course can be completed in just seven weeks.
For example, a graduate from Fast.ai’s first year, Sara Hooker, was hired into Google’s highly competitive AI residency programme after finishing the course, having never worked on deep learning before. She is now a founding member of Google’s new AI research office in Accra, Ghana, the firm’s first in Africa.
To make it accessible to anyone who wants to learn how to build AI software, Jeremy Howard, who founded Fast.ai with Rachel Thomas, a mathematician, says middle school mathematics is enough. Fast.ai is not the only A.I. programme. AI4ALL, another non-profit organization, founded by leading technologists including Dr. Fei-Fei Li, works to bring AI education to schoolchildren that would otherwise not have access to it.
Howard’s ambitions run deeper than just dealing with the shortage in the AI labour market. His aim is to spread deep learning into many hands, so that it may be applied in as many fields as possible. The ambition, says Mr Howard, is for AI training software to become as easy to use and common as sending an email on a smart phone.
【小题1】What’s Paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The way to get a Doctor’s degree. |
| B．The difficulties to get a Doctor’s degree. |
| C．The importance to get a Doctor’s degree. |
| D．The necessity to get a Doctor’s degree. |
| A．It aims to produce AI graduates in a fast way. |
| B．It aims to collect money for poor students. |
| C．It charges a high free for offering courses. |
| D．It becomes popular only in India and Nigeria. |
| A．India. | B．Nigeria. |
| C．Ghana. | D．America. |
| A．They are both meant for children. |
| B．They require advanced math. |
| C．They have the same founder. |
| D．They are both non-profit. |
| A．Anxious. | B．Disappointed. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Surprised. |
