Plan 2024

My current mantra, adopted at the beginning of this year, is: Do what contributes: Master a high-value skill that helps others.

Every day, I remind myself of this goal. This simple sentence encompasses much of what is required to fulfill Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Provided our basic physiological needs are covered, many of us will strive for mastery in some domain to achieve self-actualization. As a byproduct of mastery, particularly of a high-value skill, we fulfill our needs for self-esteem and safety. Mastery of one's work results in pride and admiration. If it’s high value, or if you're the very best, you don't have to worry about safety, as money covers that. This also partly covers the social domain, as "doing what contributes" and "helping others" benefits our community and society as a whole. Our work, directly or indirectly, enhances the lives of those around us. I believe that mastery of one’s work, coupled with autonomy, can lead to a fulfilling life, provided you also maintain your health and build strong relationships with family and friends.

My Path So Far

University

My path through life has been a circuitous one. When I left school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was good at mathematics and science, so the natural next step was to pursue a degree in engineering. Between 2015 and 2020, I completed a Master’s degree in Integrated Design Engineering, a sub-discipline of Mechanical Engineering that included elements of product design, mechatronics, and software. However, during university, I never really got interested in anything, and I never excelled at any particular subject. Consequently, when I graduated, I felt completely lost. Every potential mechanical engineering job I felt qualified for seemed extremely boring.

Adult World

Towards the end of my degree, I became more interested in software development. After graduation, I took some time off to learn web development, inspired by the success stories of Silicon Valley giants like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Eventually, I landed a graduate web developer job with a modest salary, but I was in the industry. Over the next three years, I worked in various full-stack web developer roles and even tried creating my own AI language partner, Langchats

Web Dev Redundancy

However, by 2024, everything changed for me. I had been following advancements in AI for several years and came to believe that a significant portion of web development would be automated by AI agents in the coming years. I foresee a future where UI/UX designers and a few high-level systems architects use a ChatGPT-like interface to manage a group of AI web development agents to create web apps. I don’t believe the job of a web developer is defensible in the coming decade.

Despite my love for software, I needed to work in a more defensible domain. I wasn't finding a sense of purpose or fulfillment in my web development work and wanted my efforts to have meaning.

I have always been fascinated by technological frontiers. Several areas for technological progress in the coming decade excite me as a software developer:

1. Preventative healthcare
2. Artificial superintelligence
3. Abundant energy (nuclear)
4. Energy storage
5. Autonomous systems (robotics & self-driving vehicles)
6. Food production
7. Augmented reality (next computing paradigm)
8. Quantum computing

These are just a few examples.

Therefore, starting in September 2024, I will be pursuing a one-year Master’s program in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. I believe this is the right move for my future. I am particularly interested in spatial intelligence and the embodiment of AI, essentially bringing AI systems into the physical world. While current hype focuses on large language models like ChatGPT, I think many people overlook the bigger picture. Once AI properly crosses the barrier from the digital to the physical world, it will transform our lives. I believe this will happen in my lifetime, and I want to play a part in it.

I aim to maximize my chances of contributing to this technological revolution by mastering the Artificial Intelligence subdomain of Spatial Intelligence. Although I am not yet certain which specific field I want to enter—be it autonomous robotics, self-driving vehicles, or augmented reality—I know that a solid understanding of Spatial Intelligence will allow me to build a new career in any of them.

I also believe that intelligence is inherently spatial and that vision has played a critical role in the evolutionary development of our cognition and intelligence. There are recorded examples of humans who grew up without any human contact, and consequently without language, yet they can still intelligently survive and navigate the world around them.

Some Thoughts

As daunting as the next year will be, it feels great to finally, after 27 years, have a clear direction in my life. I no longer feel lost. It’s hard for me to accept that it has taken me so long. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of envy towards the younger folk at Wayve and DeepMind who took a shorter path to become experts in AI. I am not proud of feeling this emotion. I have to accept these feelings and be grateful that I have the opportunity to change my path to a more fruitful and purposeful one. Many people never get this chance.

Abroad

My girlfriend and I are eager to experience living somewhere new. We’ve been in Edinburgh long enough and are ready for a change. For the last five years or so, I’ve been fascinated by city livability and have analyzed various city quality of life indices. Additionally, YouTube channels like Not Just Bikes have provided an accessible breakdown of urban development and city planning. While I don’t want to be a “grass is always greener on the other side” kind of person, I truly believe that where you live significantly impacts your quality of life. People shouldn’t just settle for the place they were born.

Zurich is at the top of my list. However, I’d be happy to live in other cities, provided my dream job is located there. Zurich consistently ranks around third in quality of life indexes. I also have a love for the German language, which I can speak at a lower intermediate level, making a move to Zurich easier than to other cities in Western Europe.

Plan Moving Forward

I have a lot to do to prepare for a career in Spatial Intelligence. My module selection at university reflects this decision, and over the next six months, I will develop ideas for potential Master’s thesis topics.

Actionable Goals

1. Complete the top 150 LeetCode questions in Python.
2. Do my Master’s thesis on a topic related to Spatial Intelligence (SLAM / Neural Rendering / Gaussian Splatting / NeRF's / Large World Models).
3. Learn German to a C1 level using ChatGPT and Anki.
4. Build a portfolio of personal Spatial Intelligence-related projects.

By following this plan, I hope to position myself at the forefront of the next technological revolution and make a meaningful contribution to the field of Artificial Intelligence.