<story><title>Machine Learning for Developers</title><url>http://xyclade.github.io/MachineLearning/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zxcvvcxz</author><text>Is anyone else at least a bit worried about a bunch of developers running around doing &amp;quot;machine learning&amp;quot; without much understanding of mathematics and probability? E.g. consider the creation of fragile models that overfit data being used in finance, infrastructure, medicine, etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aficionado</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a little bit worried. At least at the same level as when I see a bunch of developers compiling programs without much understanding of what an LL(k) parser does, or how a pushdown automaton works, or what a Turing machine is. I usually feel the same every time I see an elevator without a liftman, don&amp;#x27;t compute a square root by hand, or hear about Google self-driving cars.</text></comment>
<story><title>Machine Learning for Developers</title><url>http://xyclade.github.io/MachineLearning/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zxcvvcxz</author><text>Is anyone else at least a bit worried about a bunch of developers running around doing &amp;quot;machine learning&amp;quot; without much understanding of mathematics and probability? E.g. consider the creation of fragile models that overfit data being used in finance, infrastructure, medicine, etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostrademons</author><text>Is that any different from a bunch of developers plugging in magic numbers into a formula that they made up, which (to a first approximation) is roughly what happens now?&lt;p&gt;Realistically, the outcome will be the same as it is now: those firms whose models don&amp;#x27;t reflect reality will blow up, those whose do will get bigger, a few will get too big to fail off some very confidently-expressed models and make a lot of people mad at them, and eventually the market will straighten out who&amp;#x27;s lying and who&amp;#x27;s not.  Won&amp;#x27;t be painless, but then, capitalism never is.</text></comment>