Linear Digressions

Simpson's paradox is the data science equivalent of looking through one eye and seeing a very clear trend, and then looking through the other eye and seeing the very clear opposite trend. In one case...

11 Apr 201618min

Sometimes when we say an algorithm discriminates, we mean it can tell the difference between two types of items. But in this episode, we'll talk about another, more troublesome side to discrimination...

4 Apr 201615min

This episode started out as a discussion of recommendation engines, like Netflix uses to suggest movies. There's still a lot of that in here. But a related topic, which is both interesting and impor...

28 Mar 201631min

One neural net is creating counterfeit bills and passing them off to a second neural net, which is trying to distinguish the real money from the fakes. Result: two neural nets that are better than ei...

21 Mar 201618min

In this episode, we're taking many episodes' worth of insights and unpacking an extremely complex and important question--in what ways are we winning the fight against cancer, where might that fight g...

14 Mar 201619min

Hey, sick of the election yet? Fear not, there are algorithms that can automagically generate political-ish speech so that we never need to be without an endless supply of Congressional speeches and ...

11 Mar 201620min

Multi-armed bandits: how to take your randomized experiment and make it harder better faster stronger. Basically, a multi-armed bandit experiment allows you to optimize for both learning and making u...

7 Mar 201611min

"People with a family history of heart disease are more likely to eat healthy foods, and have a high incidence of heart attacks." Did the healthy food cause the heart attacks? Probably not. But est...

4 Mar 201616min