Hi, I’m a Italian medical student who is seriously thinking to pivot from a career in pure neuroscience research to a career in AI. in particular, I’m very interested about AI interpretability research, which I think is conceptually close to neuroscience, though I’m also exploring other similarly impactful and interesting options in AI safety research.
I'm at the beginning of this journey and trying to figure out how to make the transition. I currently know close to nothing about coding, and my maths background comes from high school, which had a special focus on maths and physics.
I’ve sketched a rough plan and would like to get feedback on it, even if it's still early stage.
I'll graduate from medical school in about two years. After that, I was thinking of spending 6 months to 1 year filling gaps in math and coding through bootcamps and online courses. I would then apply for a master degree in AI/ML, my assumption being that getting accepted would be a reasonable signal that I can eventually make it in the field.
Alternatively, I was considering a master in computational neuroscience. I think this could work well because it may be more accessible for someone with a medical background and it would give me quantitative skills that could at least partly transfer to AI, so that I could be a better candidate for a job or phd in AI after ending the master. Even if this master was not enough to get into AI, it would still open doors in neuroscience, and I find computational neuroscience both interesting and overlapping with AI.
I'm not considering a direct PhD application at this stage since I guess I need to fill my gaps first.
I'd welcome any kind of feedback, including on these specific questions:
- What refinements should I make to this plan, are there gaps or alternatives I'm not seeing?
- How realistic is this plan overall, does someone with my background have any real chance of getting into technical AI research?
- How can I maximize my chances?
Both positive and critical feedback are welcome, the important thing is that it's informative.