My Journey on Learning and the 3 Technologies that will Drive Humanity Forward

After dropping a fortune on university to get a degree, the biggest takeaway I can say I have from my university experience is the very motto of my alma mater itself — Ancora Imparo.

Ancora Imparo is Italian for ‘I am still learning’

Life until 2018 has been full of ups and downs, but mostly with me just floating through them. I’ve not been intentional about anything up until late 2017, where I’ve come to realize that the memories and experiences I’ve accrued need to be recorded and reflected on, lest I forget everything I’ve learned so far.

So here’s my commitment on what’s made me who I am today, and a declaration of the path that I want to walk.

Me in 30-Seconds

I was born in Singapore, but I grew up in Kuala Lumpur. Basically spent my life moving around and stayed in a total of 5 countries.

Growing up, studies were a piece of cake for me. I went by with the bare minimum amount of effort until overconfidence and arrogance caused me drop out of university in America.

Got depressed. Picked up my shit (thanks Dylan) and was blessed enough to get a second shot back in Malaysia, studying Computer Science. Got to go for an exchange in the UK for a term of research in Machine Learning, did my last year in Australia. Basically things were looking up again.

I was born into the generation of Millennials — I basically got to see how the world was like with and without technology. To be honest, the rate at which I saw technology change things around me both scared and mesmerized me.

2017 was when I realized that no matter how much I already knew about what I know about, no amount of knowledge will ever be sufficient for me to feel safe and secure with my position in life.

3 Pillars of Technology

Realizing that technology is the engine behind the changes of the world, I pegged 3 subject areas where I deem as revolutionary and will more than likely push forward humanity to the very brinks of our imagination.

These are:

1. Artificial Intelligence 🤖
2. Blockchain Technology 💱 (somebody please make a proper blockchain emoji)
3. Game Design 🎮

It’s pretty obvious why #1 & #2 are on that list, given the many advancements these 2 have already brought to life. Game design on the other hand is an area that I’m betting on for the future. It’s also the field that I have the most passion for.

This video basically encapsulates how I feel about it.

It’s the idea that you can teach someone something implicitly, without having to give instructions that charms me. Imagine if this can be applied to education, training or any form of knowledge sharing. Creating seamless experiences that despite being foreign, can immediately feel familiar and intuitive.

Game Design is basically UX on steroids.

Apple does an amazing job making things feel super usable and intuitive-without ever having to explicitly teach the user how to do things. While they might have a different term for what this is called, Game Design has been trying to solve this problem ever since the days of the Atari where in-game instructions were occupying precious space in a game cartridge.

Rather than stand by and watch this revolution happen without being a part of it, at the end of 2017, I decided to start learning about ALL of them.

My Goals

1. To become a master in these 3 pillars. I’m not learning these technologies for the sake of learning only. I’m going to use what I learn to change the world.
2. Combine these 3 pillars and give value to the world. I’m going to find ways to combine these 3 pillars and turn them into usable technologies that drive humanity forward.
3. Inspire others to embrace the technological revolution and be excited for it. Changing the world is not something that I can simply hope to achieve alone. By writing about my experiences and sharing what I’ve learned, I want to inspire others to be a part of my journey too.

My Commitment to these 3 Pillars of Technology and Learning

For 2018, I’ve set targets for myself to pursue knowledge in these 3 fields that I deem revolutionary.

Courses

Complete 6 courses on any of the 3 pillars:

1. Reinforcement Learning by David Silver from UCL
2. Machine Learning by Andrew Ng on Coursera
3. Fast.ai
4. Become a Blockchain Developer with Ethereum and Solidity on Udemy
5. TBD
6. TBD

I decided to pick my courses as I complete them because I realized that a lot of the material tends to overlap (I know this because I’ve checked out a few already) and I won’t know what I don’t know until I know something about the field. 😬

Books/Reading

Read 6 Books on any of the 3 pillars or anything that will help me improve myself:

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari
2. ✔️Final Fantasy V by Chris Kohler
3. ✔️Spelunky by Derek Yu
4. Shadow of the Colossus by Nick Suttner
5. TBD
6. TBD

Similarly, books get decided on the fly as I complete them too. You might notice that I have a 3 books from boss fight books. If you’re ever looking for case studies or personal accounts of classic games, look no further. They’re currently one of my favorite indie publishers.

Naturally, my reading is not just limited to these few books. I often read shorter books or articles whenever it piques my interest. I also make it a point to read a recent research paper on Artificial Intelligence on Nurture.AI every single day.

A few notable articles I recommend people reading:

• My Self-Created Artificial Intelligence Master’s Degree by Daniel Bourke (If you notice, this article draws many inspirations from Daniel and his way of living and learning 💪)
• I’m 32 and spent $200k on biohacking. Became calmer, thinner, extroverted, healthier & happier — Serge Faguet

Pursuing Video Games 🎮

Finish 6 video games.

I’m a mega video game connoisseur. I have over 200 games on steam, a PS4 as well as a Nintendo 3DS. In reality, I only play about a 3–5 hours a week. Collecting games is for more my retirement plan — where I intend to spend my time playing all my backlogged games while sipping on whiskey. 👌

Now this might seem like a fruitless goal, but I carefully curate the games I play and make sure that they are either some form of classic or derive some value to me in game design. While I doubt I can convince anyone to pick up any of these games if they are not already a gamer, I strongly recommend that you go read some articles about why these games are amazing:

1. Final Fantasy IV
2. Shadow of Collossus
3. Final Fantasy XV
4. Hyper Light Drifter
5. TBD
6. TBD

Why any of these?

Previously, I completely spent my days wasting away on video games and substances. With no intention, I was drifting through life. Just look at the number of hours I’ve clocked up on a game called Dota 2.

The peak of playing of all 5666 hours wass getting into the top-32 in a national tournament, nothing that can secure my future.

2017 was the year I decided to stop all of that crap, and pursue things that fulfilled me. To be relevant in the years to come and not some drifter waiting around for things to happen to him. I got into crypto, AI and most importantly, doing things.

Today, I run a global movement called AI Saturdays, spreading free AI education for all skill levels across 50+ cities in the world, work as an AI Research Fellow for a company called Nurture.AI and I’ve got 2 projects on the side involving blockchain, AI and game design.

I have never felt more satisfied with life.

Yet, I still crave more. I want to be there when a technological revolution happens. When the first person goes to Mars, when flights to the Moon are commercialized. (Elon Musk 😂). Heck, I want to be behind it all, driving things forward.

Just. Because. It’s. All. So. Bloody. Exciting.

Find this useful? Feel free to smash that clap and check out my other works. 😄

James Lee is an AI Research Fellow at Nurture.AI. A recent graduate from Monash University in Computer Science, he writes about on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. Follow him on Twitter @jamsawamsa.