AI is a vast and growing field with many opportunities for those without a degree. In fact, some of the most well-known AI researchers don’t have a traditional computer science background. So, if you’re interested in learning about AI, there are many resources available to help you get started, whether you want to pursue a career in AI or just learn more about the topic for personal interest.
There are plenty of online resources for learning about AI. For example, the website Coursera offers free online courses on AI topics such as machine learning and natural language processing. Alternatively, Udacity provides Nanodegree programs which are career-focused online courses that teach specific skills needed for jobs in tech industries such as self-driving car engineer or robotics software engineer. These courses typically last 3-6 months and cost a few thousand dollars, but Udacity offers scholarships to help offset the cost.
There are also many books available on AI topics. For a more general introduction to AI, I recommend “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom. For a more technical introduction, I recommend “Deep Learning” by Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville. Finally, for a more philosophical perspective on AI, I recommend “The Superintelligent Will: AI as a Threat to Human Autonomy and Moral Responsibility” by Nick Bostrom.
In addition to online resources and books, there are also plenty of conferences and meetups where you can learn about AI. For example, the annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference is a major AI conference where researchers present their latest work. You can also find smaller, more specialized conferences such as the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) or the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference. Alternatively, there are meetups for specific AI topics such as deep learning which you can find on websites like Meetup.com.
In short, there are many ways to learn about AI without getting a degree in the field. Whether you want to pursue a career in AI or just learn more about the topic for personal interest, there are plenty of resources available to help you get started.