"Dear Amazon.com Customer," ... an acute dumb outcome of machine learning
This is not a technical note regarding machine learning.
"Dear Amazon.com Customer,"
"We've noticed that customers who have purchased Halo: Combat Evolved are also interested in The Godfather (DVD-ROM) for the Windows XP. For this reason, you might like to know that this game will be released on March 21, 2006. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below."
I am truly impressed that machines accurately capture this correlation to intuitive typical human nature. However the conclusion is wrong, as it so focuses on the data that it blatantly ignores:
1) Compared to the rest of a user's entire profile, a few entries in the transaction history can be outliers.
2) Predictions should be context-dependent, where context can change, for the good or bad.
After all, machines doesn't know all, and they aren't smart enough yet to fortune-tell on people -- it'd be boring / sad if they are.
"Dear Amazon.com Customer,"
"We've noticed that customers who have purchased Halo: Combat Evolved are also interested in The Godfather (DVD-ROM) for the Windows XP. For this reason, you might like to know that this game will be released on March 21, 2006. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below."
I am truly impressed that machines accurately capture this correlation to intuitive typical human nature. However the conclusion is wrong, as it so focuses on the data that it blatantly ignores:
1) Compared to the rest of a user's entire profile, a few entries in the transaction history can be outliers.
2) Predictions should be context-dependent, where context can change, for the good or bad.
After all, machines doesn't know all, and they aren't smart enough yet to fortune-tell on people -- it'd be boring / sad if they are.
posted by xlx at
12:17:00 AM
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