Posts
 |
Photo: GraphicStock.com
|
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning have suddenly become some of the biggest industry buzz terms around. If a solution claims to utilise these techniques, it suddenly becomes red hot, blazing smoke and mirrors in its impressive wake.
 |
| Photo: Simon Chan |
Chan, speaking at ApacheCon Europe in Seville, tells an audience of about 12 how he started as a software developer when he was 14, founded a few companies of varying success rates – many of which used AI – then went on to conduct machine learning research.
He described the talk as “a summary of what I learned over the last decade.” This, in turn, is my very brief précis of his hour long talk.
Chan begins by reiterating that there is a lot of “cool stuff” going on in the field of machine learning but he warns “we need to move beyond this”.
“At the end of the day it is about customers. They need to see the value.”
It is certainly true that machine learning projects are often quite big picture and conceptual in nature, while Chan explains that for developers they can be be made to sound as easy to create as one, two, three: read text book, create model, train data.
Most of the educational processes around machine learning come from a static data set, he adds. Yet in reality you need an application that is learning from new user data continuously and automatically.
“This is scary,” he says because it is live, in the field and represents a change in mindset from traditional development. Some of the skills necessary blend more naturally with data engineering.
Read more...
Source: IDG Connect
