Summary:  What is an AI Product Manager and how do you know when you need one.

The role of Product Manager (PM) can mean many things dependent on the specifics of the company, its markets, its channels, and the variety of its products.  It’s almost impossible to put a single label on the responsibilities of a…

Summary:  In a comprehensive study of 18 recently presented DNN advancements in top-N recommenders, only 7 presented sufficient data to allow reproduction.  Worse, of the 7 that could be reproduced none showed an actual improvement over simple linear and KNN techniques when those were properly optimized.

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Summary: As we have become ever more enamored with DNNs, and their accuracy and utility has been paced only by their complexity we will need to answer the question of whether we will ever really be able to explain what goes on inside.

As we have become ever more enamored with DNNs, and their accuracy and…

Summary:  Analytic Platforms are rapidly being augmented with features previously reserved for data scientists.  They are presented as easy to use but require substantial data literacy and advanced DS skills for the most complex.  Business users and analysts can pursue more complex problems on their own, but need good oversight.

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Summary:  Now that you have a little time for introspection, how about reviewing the performance of your chatbots.

Chances are this lock down period has given you a little more time for introspection and observation than you had before.  Let me suggest that this would be a good time to take a look at how your…

Summary:  COVID-19 and the changes it creates in the business environment for the next 12 to 24 months means our current AI strategies need to thoroughly reviewed and probably retargeted.

Whether you are a Zoom-connected CXX level living out your WFH isolation or one the ‘fortunates’ in essential industries…

Summary:  High stakes models like those that allocate scarce resources to competing hospitals are headline news.  New thinking contrasting model-based versus model-free learning are emerging to describe new conditions we must consider before building or evaluating those models.

At this point we’re all…

Summary: Whether trying to predict the life outcomes of disadvantaged kids or to model where ventilators will be most needed, a little humility is in order.  As this study shows, the best data and the broadest teams failed at critical predictions.  Getting the model wrong, or more importantly using it in the wrong way can hurt all of us.

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Summary:  An interesting documentary about the earliest days of AI/ML and my alternate take on how we should really be describing the development of our profession to the newly initiated.

What could be more natural in these days of the Corona Virus than binge watching great videos.  I was intrigued by a…

Summary: Since COVID-19 is occupying most of our thoughts these days, it seems appropriate to highlight where AI/ML is making a contribution to getting us out of our homes and back to work. 

Since COVID-19 is occupying most of our thoughts these days, it seems appropriate to highlight where AI/ML is making a…

Summary:  If you’re planning your AI/ML business strategy watch out for the confusion in categories and overly risky ratings given by some research and review sources.  Read the research, then consult with your own data scientists for a better evaluation of risk. It’s likely not as bad as you think. 

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Summary: The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms is just out the big news is how much more capable all the platforms have become.  Of course there are also some interesting winner and loser stories.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms is just out for 2020.  The really big news is how many excellent choices are now available.  In a remarkable move, the whole field of…

Summary:  Centaur AI is the best marriage of the machine’s ability to remember, analyze, and detect issues along with the human’s intuition to evaluate or take action on those results.  Instead of focusing on AI replacing humans, we should focus on AI in its role of augmenting humans.

In this angsty age where…

Summary:  Looking at the 12 hottest world-changing segments in the VC-funded world shows that AI will play a key role.  Here’s a little more detail.

From the inside of the data science profession looking out it’s easy to imagine that almost everything that is or will be important somehow depends on AI.  Maybe…

Summary:  For all the hype around winning game play and self-driving cars, traditional Reinforcement Learning (RL) has yet to deliver as a reliable tool for ML applications.  Here we explore the main drawbacks as well as an innovative approach to RL that dramatically reduces the training compute requirement and time to train.

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Summary:  A little history lesson about all the different names by which the field of data science has been called, and why, whatever you call it, it’s all the same thing.

A little reminiscence, or for those of you who are only recently data scientists, a little history lesson. 

Our profession of…

Summary:  Too many solutions.  We are at an inflection point where too many vendors are offering too many solutions for moving our AI/ML models to production.  The very real risk is duplication of effort, fragmentation of our data science resources, and incurring unintended new technical debt as we bind ourselves to platforms that have hidden assumptions or limitations in how that approach problems.

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Summary:  AI/ML itself is the next big thing for many fields if you’re on the outside looking in.  But if you’re a data scientist it’s possible to see those advancements that will propel AI/ML to its next phase of utility.

“The Next Big Thing in AI/ML is…” as the lead to an article is probably the most…

Summary:  More data means better models but we may be crossing over a line into what the public can tolerate, both in the types of data collected and our use of it.  The public seems divided.  Targeted advertising is good but the increased invasion of privacy is bad.

Headlines are full of alarm.  The public is up in arms.  The internet is stealing their privacy.  Indeed, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford rates this as the most…

Summary:  Despite our concerns about China taking the lead in AI, our own government efforts mostly through DARPA continue powerful leadership and funding to maintain our lead.  Here’s their plan to maintain that lead over the next decade. 

Think all those great ideas that have powered AI/ML for the…