A Fast Track for Machine Learning

MACHINE-LEARNING SYSTEMS USE DATA TO UNDERSTAND PATTERNS and make predictions. When the system is predicting which photos are of cats, you may not care how certain it is about its results. But if it's predicting the fastest route to the hospital, the amount of uncertainty becomes critically important. "Imagine the system tells you'Route A takes 9 minutes' and'Route B takes 10 minutes.' Route A sounds better," says Tamara Broderick, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "But now it turns out that Route A takes 9 minutes plus-or-minus 5, and Route B takes 10 minutes plus-or-minus 1. If you need a life-saving procedure in 12 minutes, suddenly your decision making really changes."