Comment by BoredomIsFun
15 hours ago
That'd would be a terrible advice if there weren't a plenty of other things "you are not equipped for", but far less daunting both theoretically and practically. Such as, say, convolutional neural networks, or some older ML tech. Or even something totally unrelated to ML.
Transformers are difficult to understand even to people with strong ML background, let alone a teenager.
You are assuming the 17yo in question as an untrained underdeveloped savage. If I were 17 in 2026, I would certainly have exploited all the availabilities from 2010 on - including YouTube, OpenCourseware, the Web simply (Sebastian Raschka etc.) and LLMs.
That 17yo would have already built many uncommon bases, and would build further.
That is, a 17yo with proper mentality.