[HN Gopher] A Software Tester's Perspective on Statistical Learn... ___________________________________________________________________ A Software Tester's Perspective on Statistical Learning Theory Author : bitforger Score : 16 points Date : 2020-11-17 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (mitchgordon.me) (TXT) w3m dump (mitchgordon.me) | jsinai wrote: | This is good humoured satire and reminds me of my first job as a | data scientist straight out of maths school. I was in a team | who's very existence was to advocate for ML everywhere and | anywhere, without much success because everyone (including the | stakeholders) failed to start from the fundamentals of the | problem. | | Luckily I got out, upped my game and corrected course. Now in my | current role it is all about starting from basics and letting our | insights as well as the problem solving process (aka engineering) | guide our solution. The modelling approach we thought we'd do in | the first 3 months turned out to be absolutely wrong 7 months | later. | | Don't get me wrong that ML is a waste of time. If you need to do | predictive modelling to solve your problem and if the complexity | is high enough that an ordinary linear model suffice (they | usually don't) or you need to model uncertainty as well, then ML | may very well get you from point A to B. And achieving that step | can be a worthwhile, rewarding and challenging endeavour. | | The issue is when ML becomes a substitute for the fundamental | problem solving or is treated as a solution when it isn't. | fizixer wrote: | Machine learning is nowhere close to replacing the human coding | activity. | | Machine learning is creeping up at newer and newer areas of | application in surprising ways, and ignoring it would put you at | peril as a tech worker. This is what I mean when I use the term | 'software 2.0'. | rsrsrs86 wrote: | Witty, but not wholly faithful to statistical learning theory ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-11-17 23:02 UTC)