Cool. Makes me want to get into that — checking out sites for vulnerabilities. Very impressive for a 16 year old. Should definitely have been paid more.
In my opinion, the issue in AI is similar to the issue in self driving cars. I think the last “five percent” of functionality for agents etc. will be much, much more difficult to nail down for production use, just like snow weather and strange roads proved to be much more difficult for self-driving car technology rollout. They got to 95% and assumed they were nearing completion but it turned out there was even more work to be done to get to 100%. That’s kind of my take on all the AI hype. It’s going to take a lot more work to get the final five percent done.
If this is a possibility, try to take some time off and focus on the very basics of life. As intellectual people we tend to skip over the basics since our minds are elsewhere thinking about something “important”. As it turns out, to live an effective life you have to spend time thinking about very mundane, real-world chore-like things. This was very hard for me to really internalize. I ended up quitting my first job out of college due to mental health decline, but also due to the fact that I couldn’t honestly take care of myself. I was at a top tech company, I could hold intelligent conversation, but there was so much I skipped over (out of necessity really).
Now I’m rebuilding myself from the ground up. The basics: structuring my day, eating regularly, even things like grooming myself and of course exercise (though I’ve been slacking). Really it feels great to finally be able to be “dumb” for a while. I’m not coding intensively though I’m keeping up with the field and dabbling here and there. Otherwise I’m trying to live as if I weren’t smart. It’s very liberating but hard at first to dedicate yourself to your actual self and not your work.
Like others said, definitely cut out the dopamine hits (weed, passive TV) if you can. Maybe try the fabled dopamine detox.
Whatever you do, you’re not alone! I’ve got buddies in other fields in similar positions. Like a great burn out from tech and all this instant gratification. Good luck!
Fair point. But again, that would be less of an issue if there were like 3 or 4 big search engines with different algorithms, all changing and adapting on their own schedules. Would be harder to game the system then.