The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos. Pedro is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.
In 2018 he launched a machine learning research group at D.E. Shaw, but departed after one year. Shaw’s well known former employees include Jeff Bezos, Lawrence Summers and Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction.
The Master Algorithm is a wonderful inspection of Machine Learning technology. However, do not be intimidated, this book is not for computer science majors. Pedro is addressing Machine Learning for consumers. The benefit here is the concepts around Machine Learning for every day consumers.
Actually, the goal of the book is two fold: learn about the development of machine learning, and then inspire the reader to build a master algorithm of their own. Do not worry, there is no coding in this book.
So, the premise for Pedro is to strive to build a master algorithm, which in turn will generate all algorithms needed by human kind. While a bit ambitious, it does not feel an out of bounds question. As Pedro conveys, give it twenty years. This is powering Google, Amazon, Microsoft in the enterprise and Apple’s iPhones.
Machine Learning is surpassing the parent, Artificial Intelligence as the most popular deployment of advanced computing over the last twenty years. What is remarkable is that only within the last ten years the integration of advanced processors and cloud computing, with quantum elements are now making the long promise of Machine Learning possible.
Different types of sorting
It would also not hurt to take in Chapter Six: In the Church of the Reverend Bayes. The Bayesians view Machine Learning as an extension of Bayes’ theorem. Bayesianism was invented by Pierre-Simon de Laplace who wrote:
An intelligence that, at a given instant, could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings that make it up, if moreover it were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, would encompass in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atoms. For such an intelligence nothing would be uncertain, and the future, like the past, would be open to its eyes.
p. 168
Missed opportunity?
Machine Learning is creating in remarkable ways, benefits not only for our global society, but also education, health, business, and science. At the same time, machine learning will also harm or exploit mankind.
In conclusion, Pedro is guiding readers to the possibilities of not only machine learning, but the aim of creating a Master Algorithm. This is a very good book and provides many lessons for consumers.
Microsoft Research | The Master Algorithm
Talks at Google | The Master Algorithm
TEDX Talks | The Quest for the Master Algorithm
TEDX Talks | The Next Hundred Years of Your Life