Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Some things are so obvious that we all miss them for a long time. Moving from experiment lab to the real world requires some expertise.

To do artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, etc. you do computing. This means a lot of software work. Though not as old as physics and chemistry, there have been some seven or eight decades of software practice. You can’t pick up the practice of software in a few afternoons or months. The same can be said for general computing and all the things that go with that.

Interesting experiments may be interesting, but they are experiments. Products that involve computing require professionals with experience in that field. Those professionals may not be as smart, creative, or interesting as those who created the interesting experiments, but they are necessary.

Someone in your group performed an interesting and potentially valuable experiment? Great! Want to move from the lab to the real world? Great! There is no magic here. Go back to the fundamentals of projects and systems. Bring in the professionals in those fields. Be a little boring.

And succeed.