Ask HN: Is this the right time to pursue a PhD in Machine Learning?
Hi all, I have an offer to pursue a PhD in Computer Science (Machine Learning) from a top-4 CS school (Stanford/CMU/MIT/Berkeley) starting this Fall. My research interests lie in interpretability, adversarial robustness, privacy and fairness in machine learning. My eventual goal is to have a long-term career in industry research in machine learning as a research engineer/scientist.
While I love research, I do have a fear of missing out on how hot the AI/ML in industry is right now with excitement in all areas - robotics, web agents, coding assistants etc. I'm looking for advice on choosing between the two options
1. *Ditch PhD*. Is the right time to jump on the industry bandwagon (ditch PhD) ? I'm considering joining an early stage startup in AI/ML as a founding engineer.
2. *Go for PhD* Is continuing for a PhD the better option for the long term ?
While I love research, I do have a fear of missing out on how hot the AI/ML in industry is right now with excitement in all areas - robotics, web agents, coding assistants etc. I'm looking for advice on choosing between the two options
1. *Ditch PhD*. Is the right time to jump on the industry bandwagon (ditch PhD) ? I'm considering joining an early stage startup in AI/ML as a founding engineer.
2. *Go for PhD* Is continuing for a PhD the better option for the long term ?