Sorry if this isn’t the right place for this question but I couldn’t think of anywhere better to put it.

So I finished my degree in computer science a couple years ago right when the tech crash just started hitting, and the job market has been an enormous clusterfuck. Instead of trying to get a job where everyone seems to be going all-in on LLMs, machine learning, and crypto bullshit, I’d really like to be able to put my programming skills to good use helping out scientific research in some way, but I have no clue where to start. While in college I did help out my university’s biology research department by writing small programs here and there to help undergrad/grad students who weren’t very knowledgeable about technical solutions, but because of the recent funding cuts to scientific research and education, everyone there is struggling harder than I am.

Ideally I’d love to help contribute to causes that help improve people’s lives (or astronomy just because space is cool). Does anyone know of resources I could look into to start down this path?

  • Sergio@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 days ago

    “discrete AI” (probably has a few other names)

    • symbolic AI
    • traditional AI
    • GOFAI (good old fashioned) AI

    Kinda sounds like you’re talking about Explainable AI too. Very interesting set of fields, but I’m pretty sure they’re all having funding problems too.

    • Deestan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      Yeah, funding is kinda not. I assumed the question was ignoring that, but I may have been mistaken.

      Tsetlin machines are the ones I found most interesting. Strict yes/no logic stuff in the actual decision model, while the deeper complexity is in the training.