In our world, there is no one way of having a successful career in AI, but overall my impression is that the people who outshine others are those who have a strong foundation in a specific field to build on and have an affinity for learning and collaborating with people with very different backgrounds. In our case, we may have engineers having very deep dialogs with medical doctors where they need to build a mutual understanding of how a disease is diagnosed, what are the edge cases, how AI is best developed for each use case, and how a wrong diagnosis can be mitigated. It takes strong communication skills to explain and learn from people who approach the same challenges from very different directions.

For young people who are interested in pursuing a career in AI, my advice would be to specialize in a field that highly interests you. If you are inclined to specialize in Computer Science, Engineering, Math, Physics, or another technical domain you would learn Programming, Statistics, and other relevant hard skills. When you have established your hard skills, it becomes increasingly important to understand the ecosystem your AI products will be used and to learn to communicate with key stakeholders in that ecosystem. For others who are more interested in areas where AI might be a useful tool, I would advise them to get their education in the field they are interested in. Studying languages, history, medicine, or something that is not directly related to AI does not mean you will not have a shot at building a career in AI. If you learn to understand how AI can be leveraged in your field and learn to communicate with technical people you can be at a great place to introduce or enhance AI in your area of speciality.

AI is just a tool and for it to have a real impact it should be applied to the right challenges, at the right time, and in the right manner.