DAE think most people getting into AI are learning to use tools instead of learning how the tools actually work?

Michael Wright · 2026-10-07T01:15:03.799085+00:00

I keep seeing this split in every AI group I'm in, and I can't decide which side is right. One group at my local meetup in Columbus spends all their time on prompt tricks and new apps, and they ship stuff fast. The other group, maybe 5 or 6 people, spends months reading papers and building small models from scratch, and they barely ship anything. My brother is a data analyst and he told me he doesn't know how backprop works, but he got a raise in March for automating 3 reports with AI tools. Meanwhile a guy I know who can explain transformers line by line is still hunting for work 8 months later. So what's the better path, tool skills or real understanding, and how do you know which one will still matter in 2 years?

Rigidtalk

Loading…

DAE think most people getting into AI are learning to use tools instead of learning how the tools actually work? | AI Innovations - Rigidtalk