Interest is in the area of artificial intelligence, with machine learning and machine perception SOP

Hello everyone! I am working on my statement of purpose and here is the first version. I am also a little confused about the domain of "data mining". Does it belongs to the area of A.I.?

Any of your feedback will be highly appreciated. Thank you!
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SoP, computer science, Artificial Intelligence

I have general interest but my prime interest is in the area of artificial intelligence, often with machine learning, machine perception and their applications like data mining to the real world. I am also open to new research areas and are willing to learn new things. I am always fascinated by the challenge of creating human-level intelligence and I also realized that it now seems like mission impossible. Though with great advances in machine learning and computer vision, artificial intelligence so far still lacks the ability to earn enough common sense through auto reasoning like humans. However, the way to this ultimate goal has generated many benefits and bring a lot conveniences to people and for those benefits this question deserve further exploring.

My interest in this area comes from many sources. After taking some psychology classes and studying readings of Freud, I become interested about how people view their cognitive and mental process. Yet at that time I seldom have chance to explore their combination of computer science until I took data mining class, during which I learned a lot about machine learning tools like clustering, classifying, Bayesian Modeling, ANN,DNN and their potential applications to the real world. I am excited to find how our languages and observations could be translated into knowledge machines can understand and that the development of computer science needs strong support from many areas.After that, I started learning some online courses about machine learning and the more I explored it, the more I am obsessed with this field. Moreover, when I was doing research for image distance metrics, I learned many interesting researches of computer vision and A.I. about how to help machine "see" normal objects around the environment and how to represent knowledge for machines. This all greatly instigated my interest in this highly interdisciplinary field and I want to learn more about it.

I know that areas like machine learning, computer vision, computational neuroscience, linguistics and cognitive science all contribute a lot to artificial intelligence. Therefore, I tried to keep my background diverse throughout my undergraduate career. I took classes from various departments such as psychology, biology and philosophy, which provides me inspiration and different perspective outside computer science. Meanwhile, I kept good grades of my major. I rank second among 365 students in computer science and I rank first during the third year. I also have participated in several projects during my undergraduate career. These projects helped build up my knowledge towards how to use theory tools into real world applications, like the resume matching project I participated in used clustering methods. In order to gain systematic training for research, I jointed the group of Prof.XXX in XXX University. I am now a full-time research assistant in his group researching effective distance metrics of images concerning similarity search and how to reduce the time of calculating distances between images at scale and I have made some achievements on research and trying to work on a paper. Every week we will have a regular meeting sharing reflections upon papers we read last week and discuss with each other. This is really an eye-opening research experience which give me a better feel for what research in computer science is really like. I think my diverse background and strong academic performance prepare me well for graduate program.

All this has inspired me to continue my graduate study about artificial intelligence and devote myself to this area as a researcher. Except for solid training for computer science and mathematics, I also seek different kinds of inspirations from other areas, like cognitive science. Therefore, I believe University of Pennsylvania will be a good place for me to further my study in Artificial Intelligence since here I can get touch with many prestigious centers and institute such as Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, Penn Research in Machine Learning and General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception lab. Through my graduate studies, I hope to be, and will strain my every nerve to be an effective researcher.

Here are some feedbacks from a student like you who just finished my personal statement a month ago! ;)

I have general interests in ?? buthowever, my prime...

I also realized that it now seems like mission impossible. be careful with humor, it is risky in this kind of essays
I am obsessedengaged with this field

Except in addition to or beside solid training ...

... since here I can get touch with many prestigious centers and institute such as I...
I think you must focus on more details about the university to show them you did your homework regarding them and thus you also will show them that you really want to study with them, you must change that phrase in red with something fancier, you know! and something about what would you add to the university, not only what they would do for you!

I hope you find this helpful and good luck with you application!

Xuanyi, in response to your question, Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence exist in the same world, but they do not have the same function. One job takes the place of the other in order to complete a certain process. Let me be more specific. Data Mining collects the data that is required in a certain instance. This data must be analyzed and formatted into a usable presentation for others to use. This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in. The A.I. in this instance will be software used to make sense of the data collected, in a manner useful for the purpose that the data was collected. Therefore, they are a related science but they are as different as night and day in function. I think it would be best if you focus the essay on Artificial Intelligence as that is the main reason you want to attend graduate studies. The problem, is that you seem to be more focused on the data mining part of the procedure instead. Therefore, you will be looking at a career change and as such, much explain why in your statement of purpose. Everything that you have discussed here relates to Data Mining and not A.I. You may need to make a decision here. Either change your masters course to something related to Data Mining Analytics or, indicate a career change to A.I. and then defend the purpose by proving you have the proper background to shift to this field of interest in order to further your career.

@Holt
Thank you for your clear explanation. I am always confused about their relationship. I think next step I may make some changes to my sop and focus more on A.I.. Thanks again!