Google Reveals Major Hidden Weakness In Machine Learning

Machine learning involves training a model with data so that it learns to spot or predict features. The Google team pick on the example of training a machine learning system to predict the course of a pandemic. Epidemiologists have built detailed models of the way a disease spreads from infected individuals to susceptible individuals, but not to those who have recovered and so are immune. Key factors in this spread are the rate of infection, often called R0, and length of time, D, that an infected individual is infectious. Obviously, a disease can spread more widely when it is more infectious and when people are infectious for longer.