AI Career: A Guide to Artificial Intelligence Career for High School Students

by | Aug 4, 2023 | AI Technologies | 0 comments

Welcome to our AI career project research article. Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence, one of the most effective technologies of today and the future, can be propelled forward by young people. Artificial intelligence is a field that attracts a lot of attention, especially among young age groups and makes them think about a career. We encourage young people to pursue a career in artificial intelligence with the AI Career project to provide the young need in the sector. Moreover, you can reach out to our other AI-based blog posts here.

AI Career: Definition and Terminology

What is Artificial Intelligence?

It is a field of science and engineering that studies how various computer and software systems solve problems by thinking like “humans”.

At its simplest form, artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving.

IBM

The basics of artificial intelligence were founded with Alan Turing’s “Turing Test”. Furthermore, in his article ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence‘, Turing mentioned that a computer could imitate human intelligence. Consequently, this article laid the foundations of artificial intelligence.

If we are talking about artificial intelligence, there are some concepts that we cannot pass without mentioning. Let’s take a look:

Machine Learning

Machine learning indeed constitutes one of the key areas of artificial intelligence. By employing machine learning, algorithms are trained to make informed decisions and accurate predictions through data analytics.

Machine learning is behind chatbots and predictive text, language translation apps, the shows Netflix suggests to you, and how your social media feeds are presented. It powers autonomous vehicles and machines that can diagnose medical conditions based on images.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

We can see the use cases of machine learning in our example video.

Deep Learning

Next to machine learning, the other most fundamental area of artificial intelligence is deep learning. Furthermore, deep learning is a subset of machine learning that imitates the workings of the human brain. It generates valuable insights and predictions by analyzing vast amounts of data. Moreover, this innovative approach has revolutionized various fields, leveraging the increasing growth of data and technological advancements. As a result, deep learning finds applications in a wide range of industries and has become an indispensable tool for tackling complex problems and driving innovation..

Undoubtedly, autonomous vehicles attract the attention of all of us. Deep learning enables autonomous vehicles to navigate themselves by detecting objects around them.

In video games, the reactions and behaviours of characters in the game are made smarter using deep learning models.

Deep learning is also used in financial forecasting. In other words, deep learning is effectively used to analyse complex data such as financial data.

Data Analytics

Another fundamental part of AI is data analytics. Data is analysed, and interpreted and conclusions are generated. Data analysis plays a significant role in developing many technologies, especially artificial intelligence. Moreover, it finds applications in various sectors, including health, finance, education, sectors requiring foresight, transportation, and social media.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing (NLP), which many of us use daily without even realizing it, is based on computers’ understanding of human language. Thanks to NLP, computers can effectively comprehend, interpret, and respond to languages.

Indeed, today, natural language processing plays a crucial role in chatbots, empowering them to comprehend the questions we pose, conduct searches on search engines, and deliver appropriate responses. Virtual assistants such as Siri, Cortana, or Alexa are prime illustrations of how NLP is extensively integrated into our daily lives.

Natural language processing is also used in automatic text or speech translation.

Natural language processing is also used in sentiment analysis and measures customer satisfaction.

We can use it in grammar checks in texts and texts to find grammar mistakes.

Artificial Neural Networks

It is an artificial intelligence model inspired by the working principles of neurons.

In the majority of neural networks, units are interconnected from one layer to another. Each of these connections has weights that determine the influence of one unit on another unit. As the data transfers from one unit to another, the neural network learns more and more about the data which eventually results in an output from the output layer.

geeksforgeeks

Those who want to get more detailed information can take a look at the following video:

We have mentioned the concepts related to artificial intelligence well enough. Now it is time for the basic disciplines of artificial intelligence:

AI Career: Basic Fields and Disciplines of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has 3 basic disciplines:

  1. Mathematics (Linear Algebra, Calculus, Probability)
  2. Data Science
  3. Programming (Python, C/C++, Java, R, JavaScript)

Although we will not emphasise too much on the details of these basic disciplines in this article, it is useful to add a few things.
Artificial intelligence algorithms are based on mathematical calculations and models. Moreover, they produce results from what they learn by working on big data. Finally, we need programming languages to implement AI algorithms.

AI Career: Why Should You Make A Career In AI?

With the AI Career Project, we aim to promote young people to make a career in artificial intelligence. So, what are the job opportunities in this field? Furthermore, which job pays how much in terms of salary? Additionally, do countries have investments in this field? If so, how big are these investments? In this part of our AI Career blog post, we will try to answer all these questions together.

Artificial Intelligence in the Labour Market

If you are looking for an answer to why you should build a career in artificial intelligence, it would be a good reason to look at the development of artificial intelligence in the labour market.

The need for employees in the artificial intelligence sector is increasing daily. Furthermore, the constant emergence of new developments in artificial intelligence contributes to a rising demand for experts in this field.

Will artificial intelligence take over jobs?

According to the World Economic Forum’s “The Future of Jobs Reports 2020”, artificial intelligence is expected to replace 85 million jobs worldwide by 2025. However, looking at only this part of the report may seem scary. Nevertheless, the report also states it will create 97 million new jobs. So, as we can understand from here, although artificial intelligence is replacing some jobs, it also creates new business areas.

Kai-Fu Lee, the AI expert and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, said in an article he wrote in 2018 that AI would automate 50 per cent of all jobs within 15 years.

Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Midjourney Dall-E have been on our agenda recently. We can say that we have entered a period of ‘accelerated productivity’ by using these tools. Of course, the fact that they are a part of our lives requires us to address the ethics of where and for what purpose we use them. But that is not our topic right now. We will address this in the following sections of our article.

You can read the article “Robots and AI Taking Over Jobs: What to Know About the Future of Jobs” by Mike Thomas here.

One of the issues we are all wondering about must be salaries. Before talking about the salaries of artificial intelligence engineers globally, let’s talk about what an artificial intelligence engineer is and how to get one.

What is Artificial Intelligence Engineering? What Do Artificial Intelligence Engineers Do?

Artificial intelligence engineers are computer science students with a master’s degree in artificial intelligence. However, it is now possible to become an artificial intelligence engineer with online courses and training.


Data analysts, machine learning engineers, data scientists, business intelligence developers, and algorithm engineers are job positions under AI engineering. Additionally, AI engineers deal with AI models as they design and develop them. AI engineers should be able to design algorithms that can evolve and have knowledge in various disciplines such as robotics, physics and mathematics.

Salaries

The average AI engineer salaries of AI engineers globally are as follows.

USA Over $110,000
Canada Over C$85,000
United Kingdom over £60,000
Germany around €84.574
Australia USD 110,000
Singapore 74.943 Singapore dollar

(AI Engineer Salary Around the Globe in 2023, Nikita Duggal)

How Are Countries Investing in Artificial Intelligence?

According to data from Statista, global total corporate artificial intelligence (AI) investments from 2015 to 2022 are as follows (US dollars):

While it was 12.75 billion dollars in 2015 and 17.7 billion dollars in 2016, it increased to 44.08 billion dollars in 2017. While investments were made on a close scale in 2017 ($ 44.08 billion), 2018 ($ 48.85 billion) and 2019 ($ 48.85 billion), it increased to $ 67.85 billion in 2020. In 2021, it showed a great increase with $ 93.5 billion. In 2022, it is $ 91.9 billion.

These investments reached $142.3 billion by 2023.

As we can understand from here, investments in artificial intelligence worldwide have increased almost exponentially. In the following period, the investments made after the developments will undoubtedly grow with an increasing graph.


If we want to make a country-based evaluation, we can look at OECD data. According to the same data, America and China also lead other countries in AI investments.

In 2023, the US invested over $90,000 million, followed by China, worth almost $20,000 million.

Moreover, the detailed data table is available here.

Additionally, here you can find the countries with the highest private investment in artificial intelligence between 2013 and 2022.

With all these data, we can comment that the fact that there are so many investments in artificial intelligence in the world proves to us that artificial intelligence is one of the most critical sectors of the future.

AI Career: Where To Start AI Learning?

With our AI Career project, we have highlighted our objective to guide young people towards a career in artificial intelligence. In this section of our article, we will underscore the steps that young individuals who aspire to learn artificial intelligence should take to pursue their goals.

When we asked ChatGPT this question, he gave the following answer:

-Learning the basics of mathematics and programming
-Understanding the concepts of Machine Learning
-Take online AI courses
-Reading articles on -AI
-Participate in online AI communities
-Taking university courses

Math for AI

If you want to learn artificial intelligence, you should have a good command of mathematics subjects such as linear algebra, calculus, probability, and statistics. Moreover, you can find lectures on the maths topics you need for artificial intelligence by clicking below.

All the Math You Need to Know in Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning and Programming Courses

Understanding machine learning concepts and taking programming courses are essential to learning artificial intelligence. In addition, to illustrate this further, below are the courses you can take for machine learning and programming.

Stanford University – Machine Learning Course

A Case Study Approach (University of Washington)

University of London

Machine Learning with Python

Machine Learning A-Z™: AI, Python & R + ChatGPT Bonus [2023] (Udemy)

Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp (Udemy)

AI Communities

Besides these courses, you can network by joining online AI communities. Remember that interaction gives you something. Here are some online AI groups:

Reddit/artificial
Artificial Intelligence Exchange: AI Conversations and Collaborations
Kaggle
Telegram/Artificial Intelligence-Data Science, ML
Quora/Artificial Intelligence
Deep Learning Turkey

University Programmes

In this part of our AI Career project article, we will discuss how young people interested in artificial intelligence should follow a path at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

After graduating from the departments of universities related to computer science (computer engineering, software engineering…), they can do a master’s degree in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence engineering can be done in this way.

Students can also become artificial intelligence engineers by completing artificial intelligence engineering departments.

So, which universities have artificial intelligence engineering departments in Turkey?

Tobb University of Economics and Technology
Hacettepe University
Bahcesehir University
Ostim Technical University
ITU Faculty of Computer and Informatics

Departments at these universities are in English.

AI Career: Recommended Curriculum

Below is the curriculum programme we propose to be implemented for the AI career project.

Unit 1: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Overview of AI
History of AI
Basic concepts and terminology
Types of AI: Narrow AI vs. General AI

Unit 2: Applications of Artificial Intelligence
AI in daily life
AI in different sectors (e.g., healthcare, finance, education, entertainment)
Future applications of AI

Unit 3: Ethics and Society
Ethical considerations in AI
Impact of AI on society and employment
Discussion on AI policy and regulation

Unit 4: Careers in AI
Overview of AI careers (e.g., AI Specialist, Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, AI Ethicist)
Required skills and qualifications
Discussions with professionals in the field

Unit 5: Hands-on AI
Basic introduction to programming (Python)
Introduction to machine learning and data science
Projects using AI tools (e.g., designing a simple AI model)

Unit 6: Course Review and Reflection
Review key course concepts
Reflect on the role of AI in society and personal interest in AI careers
Project presentations

AI Career: Conclusion

In this article about our AI Career project, we have discussed artificial intelligence’s current situation and future. Additionally, we explored the steps young individuals can take to progress in this field, along with information about various training programs and supportive groups they can join. We sincerely hope that this article has been a valuable resource for you.

Also, check our AI Technologies category for further posts.

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