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Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by FLUX-YOU on Thursday October 02, 2014 @08:18AM (#8400413)
Well this is an easy paper to summarize: Be good at everything , read everything, talk to everybody in the field, don't ever sleep, and be able to dilate time to fit everything in!
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by EdwardCoffin on Thursday October 02, 2014 @10:08AM (#8400765)
It's important to note that this paper was published over 25 years ago, the field of A.I. was smaller then. I've read this paper multiple times, and I don't think I ever got the sense that you would need to not sleep to do it all. They spend some time talking about how to determine which are the important things to do, which you can let slide (for instance, on page 3 they say "There’s a whole bunch of journals about AI, and you could spend all your time reading them. Fortunately, only a few are worth looking at." then go on to talk about which ones to look at).
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by thanatosmin on Thursday October 02, 2014 @08:53AM (#8400513)
Unfortunately this seems to be what a lot of people strive to do, then burn out or can never really produce impactful research. Sleep, rest, relaxation, are absolutely essential to creative work. You needn't be good at everything, but you will need to strive for the best in something, and find that thing nobody has ever done before.
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by eddotman on Thursday October 02, 2014 @09:45AM (#8400668)
I skimmed through it, and most of the advice sounds pretty solid. However, I suspect that following all this advice at once is not humanly possible (or at the very least, leaves you little time for anything else in your life). I did like the part about the 'cool people' secret paper club.
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by whitten on Thursday October 02, 2014 @11:14AM (#8401034)
I find it interesting that this is published on a University of Massachusetts website rather than an MIT website.

I also think a hefty dose of this paper could apply to grad school in most fields at many top schools.

Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by tjr on Thursday October 02, 2014 @11:42AM (#8401176)
It's been reposted lots of places. Here's an ostensibly more official source, if you prefer: http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/41487
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by pXMzR2A on Thursday October 02, 2014 @11:28AM (#8401101)
are we going to get pursued legally if we share this document?
Re:How to do research at the MIT AI Lab (1988) [pdf] by rpm33 on Thursday October 02, 2014 @06:58PM (#8403563)
why would that happen ? it is a publicly available url.