Is Machine Learning Over Hyped?

You might think you can just apply some machine learning algorithm you've heard about to your problem, but chances are it won't work nearly as well as the blog post or paper you got it from. A lot of details never make it to papers; they exist solely as institutional knowledge among professionals in the field. You'll need to spend a lot of time configuring the algorithm for your problem, even if your problem is almost identical to the original you're working from. You'll need to tune hyperparameters, find the right architecture, pre-process your data in weird ways, maybe even restate parts of your problem… You can't just throw your problem at an existing algorithm; you'll either need extensive experience or a lot of trial and error.