Difference between Traditional AI Degrees and AI Certifications Astronomy, Healthcare, Agriculture,
Finance,
Education,
Entertainment, Data
Security, Automotive, Transport, E-commerce are some of the many industries that are successfully
leveraging the power of artificial intelligence. So, it must be a
saturated domain to work? Not really, on the contrary, the advancements in the field of AI is still in its nascent phase. The compounded annual growth rate predicted for the year 2021-2028 is 40.2%, and in the year 2021 itself, the AI usage is proposed to increase across sectors creating business value of $29 trillion. In addition to this, the full potential of AI, i.e. passing the ‘consciousness test’ will be achieved by the year 2060. Alan Turing first introduced the word Artificial Intelligence in 1956. It has been over 60 years and the growth in the field is still bare minimum. Could it be possible that people are overestimating the potential of AI and that the field is in the mature stage now? There is no overestimation when it comes to anticipating the capabilities of AI. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist by profession proposes that humans can utilize Artificial Intelligence to compare millions of human genomes (from both young and old people) to identify the place at which aging happens, thus eradicating the aging process altogether. So what’s the roadblock to reaching the full potential of AI? Lack of AI education and AI Certified Professionals are the major roadblocks in positively harnessing the power of AI. A LinkedIn report says that the demand for AI skilled Professionals
have gone down due to the pandemic, however after four
months, the struggle to find certified AI Professionals still prevails. As companies are investing more and more in adopting AI, they are
finding it hard to hire
professionals who will help them smoothly maintain the systems. In the year 2019, firms in Germany spend an average of 6-months to find people who would be suitable for tech positions. According to a 2018 survey, there has been a 68.75% increase in the number of businesses adopting AI. However, the lack of expertise has been reported by 39% of the businesses. To mitigate the problem of AI skill shortage, and to build a team of AI
experts, 68% of the companies are investing money in upskilling the current pool of employees. Another piece of evidence is from the LinkedIn platform, where over 645 million profiles were screened and filtered using the keyword machine learning. There are 1.8 times more professionals with AI skills in the UK and 3.1 times in the US than in Europe- the study suggests. The ever growing demand As per the IT trade group CompTIA, 37000 AI job openings were available in 2021 (from January to March). Among all the job profiles, the most required ones are following: 1. Data Scientists 2. Machine-Learning Engineers 3. Machine-Learning Developers Starting your Career in Artificial intelligence: AI Certifications or Traditional AI degrees A high performing career in AI is best suited for individuals who are highly motivated. To make a successful career in AI, you will need a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Mathematics or other related discipline. However, if you do not have any educational background in the mentioned field, you can always start learning. There are two options available for you to get started: 4. Traditional Artificial Intelligence Degrees: AI is an emerging field in science, thus you will see different universities offer you different specializations. Some of the core subjects offered in the curriculum of artificial intelligence are: a. Maths b. Statistics c. Computer Science d. Artificial Intelligence i.
Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and Deep Learning
ii.
Information Theory, Learning Algorithms, and Inference
iii.
Neural Networks
iv.
AI Representation
v.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
vi.
Problem Solving
vii.
Image Analysis and Computer Vision
Once you get a fair understanding of the fundamentals, you can always choose specialized subjects in AI subfields. 2. Artificial Intelligence Certifications: The AI Certifications are Industry-relevant, that are designed in convenient formats of learning. With foundation courses in Programming and
Statistics, you can start learning to build real-life
projects. The program that focuses on delivering career outcomes will help you focus on applications part of AI, thus making it more relevant. One of the advantages of Artificial Intelligence Certifications is that you can always go for courses that are in line with your requirements. Given that you already have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of AI, then you can focus on just those parts of AI that you need to work on. Accordingly you can choose your timings to learn and complete the assignments. Conclusion The demand for Certified AI Professionals is at an all-time high. Companies that are investing in the AI infrastructure are significantly lacking in the skilled AI Professionals. The expertise in the field of AI seems to be absent. According to Cognizant's framework,
a mere 20% of the professionals are AI leaders,
whereas 61% are classified as ‘implementers’ and 19% are beginners. If you have deep interest and innate curiosity
to learn artificial intelligence,
develop fundamental understanding of the subject by taking
up specific
courses that you require. These courses offer flexible timing, thus helping you manage the learning process efficiently. AI is vast, so analyze where your interest lies and further strengthen your skills by getting
AI certification in that particular course. Since companies are
looking for leaders who can
make significant contributions to the project, take up industry relevant certifications and work upon multiple real-life projects. All the Best!