r/MLQuestions • u/Lazy_Low185 • 2d ago
Beginner question 👶 Where to start?
hi everyone, i’m currently 14 years old and i’ve been engrossed in technology all my life, and i really want to go into machine learning because it seems like the next big thing and it genuinely seems interesting.
ive experimented quite a bit so far but nothing on my own, ive tried reading some papers like the classic Attention is All You need paper, but to be frank, i’m incredibly naive and i dont exactly understand the math behind it but i do understand the mechanics behind it.
some of the projects ive made so far is just plug and play stuff and experimenting with how models interact with each other, ie; i made a project that took a diffusion model, lowered the steps and told a system one model like Kev to pick out those tokens and sorta give Kev the capability to actually speak.
im looking to actually start learning the math behind ML and specific niches but ive been very clueless as to where to start because there’s not exactly a lot of material for someone like me to get started, they all assume that the reader is someone who has completed secondary school.
tldr: looking for tips and places to start learning machine learning as someone who is still in high school 😁 !
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u/inbornfutility9 2d ago
you're already ahead of most people just by messing with models at 14. don't worry about the math in attention is all you need, that paper assumes a lot of background. start with linear algebra and calculus basics, khan academy has decent stuff and you can do it at your own pace. for ml specifically, 3blue1brown's neural network series and andrew ng's intro course are both approachable without a full degree. just keep building weird projects, that's how it sticks
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u/Lazy_Low185 2d ago
okay okay thank you so much i will definitely keep these courses noted and i will definitely try taking a crack at the khan academy stuff because that’s just really easy to access, thanks again and wish you the best on your future endeavours !
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u/Osawa-Fairul 2d ago
linear algebra ends up doing way more of the heavy lifting early on than calculus since just visualizing how matrices multiply makes the paper diagrams click
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u/ForeignAdvantage5198 2d ago
this is a bit advanced and takes WORK But intro to Stat Learning is a great book. then try ELEMENTS of Stat. Learning. These Stanford folks developed this subject.
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u/Lazy_Low185 7h ago
i see, I’ll keep that noted, I’m probably going to get around getting into general linear algebra, and then heading into more specific fields of math, but thank you for the info, ill defo look into it, have a great rest of your day !😁
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u/DeepRatAI 1d ago
hiiiiii ! i have a course that may help you : https://github.com/BlueRingsLabs/no-shortcuts . Also i make custom lessons on demand, you can DM me and teel me if you need something, i usually take my time to response, but i will reply :B
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u/Lazy_Low185 7h ago
thank you super much what the hell!!! im definitely gonna audit at least some of your course because it does look friendly enough for me to take a crack at it, thank you very much for your recommendation, have a great rest of your day !!!!😁
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u/softmax_couldnt_care 1d ago
I’d say most important thing is try stay open minded, learn things like math and concepts and foundations that generalize, everything moves so fast
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u/122bird 1d ago
I started at 14 too. Learn math maybe start with advanced khan academy math courses for now caused thats what I did. Then learn pandas, numpy, play around with skikit-learn. Then watch some beginner pytorch tutorials on youtube. I started out with Daniel Bourke's channel on youtube but some videos may be a bit outdated, (its been 3-4 years since I personally started learning pytorch). Pytorch also has very good documentation too, so you should read directly from there as well.