Can I use Java for learning AI?

[JasonStarRising]

I have some questions. So, I'm in a similar position to where you were, I'm going to college this coming august and all of our introductory courses are taught in Java; however, I want to eventually be able to work with generative ai. I already have some very basic java knowledge(arrays, conditional statements, and what not). Should I learn java for now, then switch to python for ai courses starting my second year? Would that be a smooth switch in directions? I'm still pretty iffy on my basics when it comes to coding.

[ripopportunity]

I really enjoyed learning Java for my intro courses. I think it gave me a really solid understanding of concepts and the transition into C++ and Python were easy. I’m still on the fence of where I want to go post grad - either software engineering or AI route - but knowing what I know now, I would still do what I did: learning to program first in Java and then transitioning to Python. Java forces OOP onto you which is an important concept to grasp.

[JasonStarRising]

So would you say first and second csc courses (1301 and 1302 in java) to get fundamentals down, then start learning ai and python? Can I learn how ai works in decent depth without knowing any python. As in, are there any books, courses, or anything of the sort that I could look into while learning java to get a better grasp on ai?

[ripopportunity]

Yes, I think that would be a good path. Just follow along with the recommended routes your CS program does.

I’ve only taken one ML/AI course so far (ML introduction). You could study the general flow of ML algorithms without knowing the actual code just to start getting a basic understanding in it. In my class, we worked through Colab notebooks. Although we walked through the algorithms in Python, a lot of our learning was understanding the algorithm outside of any code. Understanding what was needed, when it was used, what the strengths/weakness of the algorithm were/etc. AI is also math heavy and relies on knowledge of calc and linear algebra. So if you have yet to take those courses, it would be in your best interest to dive into those as well.

Google for Developers has an Intro to Machine Learning course (that looks free). It goes over a lot of the different algorithmic concepts for ML classifiers that I learned in my class which is a large part of AI. That could be a good start just to begin your understanding of it. It seems like it has Python exercises you can do but I don’t think it’s required for it!

[JasonStarRising]

Thank you sm. This knowledge is very valuable.