Gaussian Processes
It’s pretty common to fit a function to a dataset when you’re a data scientist. But in many cases, it’s not clear what kind of function might be most appropriate—linear? quadratic? sinusoidal? some co...
27 Apr 202020min
Keeping ourselves honest when we work with observational healthcare data
The abundance of data in healthcare, and the value we could capture from structuring and analyzing that data, is a huge opportunity. It also presents huge challenges. One of the biggest challenges is ...
20 Apr 202019min
Changing our formulation of AI to avoid runaway risks: Interview with Prof. Stuart Russell
AI is evolving incredibly quickly, and thinking now about where it might go next (and how we as a species and a society should be prepared) is critical. Professor Stuart Russell, an AI expert at UC Be...
13 Apr 202028min
Putting machine learning into a database
Most data scientists bounce back and forth regularly between doing analysis in databases using SQL and building and deploying machine learning pipelines in R or python. But if we think ahead a few yea...
6 Apr 202024min
The work-from-home episode
Many of us have the privilege of working from home right now, in an effort to keep ourselves and our family safe and slow the transmission of covid-19. But working from home is an adjustment for many ...
29 Mars 202029min
Understanding Covid-19 transmission: what the data suggests about how the disease spreads
Covid-19 is turning the world upside down right now. One thing that’s extremely important to understand, in order to fight it as effectively as possible, is how the virus spreads and especially how mu...
23 Mars 202025min
Network effects re-release: when the power of a public health measure lies in widespread adoption
This week’s episode is a re-release of a recent episode, which we don’t usually do but it seems important for understanding what we can all do to slow the spread of covid-19. In brief, public health m...
15 Mars 202026min
Causal inference when you can't experiment: difference-in-differences and synthetic controls
When you need to untangle cause and effect, but you can’t run an experiment, it’s time to get creative. This episode covers difference in differences and synthetic controls, two observational causal i...
9 Mars 202020min
