The financial world wants to open AI's black boxes

Powerful machine-learning methods have taken the tech world by storm in recent years, vastly improving voice and image recognition, machine translation, and many other things. Now these techniques are poised to upend countless other industries, including the world of finance. But progress may be stymied by a significant problem: it's often impossible to explain how these "deep learning" algorithms reach a decision (see "The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI"). Adam Wenchel, vice president of machine learning and data innovation at Capital One, says the company would like to use deep learning for all sorts of functions, including deciding who is granted a credit card. But it cannot do that because the law requires companies to explain the reason for any such decision to a prospective customer.