Tensorflow Lite: Neat, but an ordeal to get running on your mobe

Compared to where I started in AI/ML in comp. sci. in the early 70's? Now the field is quite similar in nature to picking up BI skills. To do your best you need some type of map to guide you to the right signposts along the way. Getting it via coursework helps immensely simply due to the interactive nature of the course. Book knowledge, not so great. I'd put the various multimedia tutorials in between the two. Gifted amateurs can do pretty well even if they lack specific maths skills.

As I stated above I started working in this field back in the 70's and despite, or perhaps because of, my dozen years working in various engineering fields, I've been using ML quite a bit along the way. There were always problems that required a different approach to working with the data sets that were beyond existing methodologies in statistics, other types (long list) of analysis (long list), etc. "Wiring-Up" a neural net was useful, even if the mainframe or later microcomputers, took a good loooong while to complete its training datasets. I even came up with a couple that I've never seen anyone approach, ever. Self-allocating/wiring neural nets was one; the other was non-linear neural nets. [I do like to take a walk on the wild side from time to time.]

So, I'm not depending on my university work before or after my wandering off to play (nuclear) engineer. It was my time spent in economics, specifically econometrics, and taking every damn statistical/mathematical analysis, experimental design and/or modeling courses the university had, no matter what the department, that allowed me to rip up some of the rules and try something different. And this is one point I'd like to really make clear. We do need people that are also ready to take a walk on that wild side as the whole field, and all the domains that ML can be utilized in, as this universe hasn't been entirely mapped.

Yes, it's not down to pure API plays but it's also not something you need eight plus years, or a lifetime, in maths to do. It's also quite fun seeing what you can do. [And in the various engineering fields I've worked professionaly in over the years, let's say the laws were suggestive rather than concrete.]