In the last couple of decades, the increasing disposal of large volumes of data, generated both by humans and machines (i.e., the so-called "Big Data" phenomenon), has opened up unprecedented challenges, which, in turn, have propelled remarkable advancements in the machine learning (ML) and, more generally, artificial intelligence (AI) fields. The application of ML and AI has proven extremely effective to solve business-critical tasks in several domains: e.g., image recognition in healthcare, failure prediction in manufacturing, credit risk assessment in finance, just to name a few. However, ML/AI models are often perceived as "black-boxes": they are given inputs and hopefully produce desired outputs. There are many circumstances, in fact, where human-interpretability is crucial to understand (i) why a model outputs a certain prediction on a given instance (interpretability), (ii) which adjustable features of that instance contribute the most to the given prediction (explainability), and (iii) how to modify the instance so as to change the prediction made by the model (actionability). This need is also formally included in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which states that any business using personal data for automated processing must be able to explain how the system makes decisions (see Article 22 of GDPR).

Many teams try to start an applied AI project by diving into algorithms and data before figuring out desired outputs and objectives. Unfortunately, that's like raising a puppy in a New York City apartment for a few years, then being surprised that it can't herd sheep for you. You can't expect to get anything useful by asking wizards to sprinkle machine learning magic on your business without some effort from you first. Instead, the first step is for the owner -- that's you! -- to form a clear vision of what you want from your dog (or ML/AI system) and how you'll know you've trained it successfully. My previous article discussed the why, now it's time to dive into how to do this first step for ML/AI, with all its gory little sub-steps. This reference guide is densely-packed and long, so feel free to stick to large fonts and headings for a two-minute crash course or head straight to the summary checklist version. Cast of characters: decision-maker, ethicist, ML/AI engineer, analyst, qualitative expert, economist, psychologist, reliability engineer, AI researcher, domain expert, UX specialist, statistician, AI control theorist. The tasks we're about to tackle are the responsibility of the project's responsible adult. That's whoever calls the shots.

For those who've been looking for a 12 step program to get rid of bad data habits, here's a handy applied machine learning and artificial intelligence project roadmap. Well, it should properly be 13 steps, so we'll start counting at zero to make it work. Check that you actually need ML/AI. Can you identify many small decisions you need help with? Has the non-ML/AI approach already been shown to be worthless?

Many teams try to start an applied AI project by diving into algorithms and data before figuring out desired outputs and objectives. Unfortunately, that's like raising a puppy in a New York City apartment for a few years, then being surprised that it can't herd sheep for you. Instead, the first step is for the owner -- that's you! -- to form a clear vision of what you want from your dog (or ML/AI system) and how you'll know you've trained it successfully. My previous article discussed the why, now it's time to dive into how to do this first step for ML/AI, with all its gory little sub-steps. This reference guide is densely-packed and long, so feel free to stick to large fonts and headings for a two-minute crash course or head straight to the summary checklist version. Cast of characters: decision-maker, ethicist, ML/AI engineer, analyst, qualitative expert, economist, psychologist, reliability engineer, AI researcher, domain expert, UX specialist, statistician, AI control theorist. The tasks we're about to tackle are the responsibility of the project's responsible adult. That's whoever calls the shots.

Many teams try to start an applied AI project by diving into algorithms and data before figuring out desired outputs and objectives. Unfortunately, that's like raising a puppy in a New York City apartment for a few years, then being surprised that it can't herd sheep for you. Instead, the first step is for the owner -- that's you! -- to form a clear vision of what you want from your dog (or ML/AI system) and how you'll know you've trained it successfully. My previous article discussed the why, now it's time to dive into how to do this first step for ML/AI, with all its gory little sub-steps. This reference guide is densely-packed and long, so feel free to stick to large fonts and headings for a two-minute crash course or head straight to the summary checklist version. Cast of characters: decision-maker, ethicist, ML/AI engineer, analyst, qualitative expert, economist, psychologist, reliability engineer, AI researcher, domain expert, UX specialist, statistician, AI control theorist. The tasks we're about to tackle are the responsibility of the project's responsible adult. That's whoever calls the shots.

Many teams try to start an applied AI project by diving into algorithms and data before figuring out desired outputs and objectives. Unfortunately, that's like raising a puppy in a New York City apartment for a few years, then being surprised that it can't herd sheep for you. Instead, the first step is for the owner -- that's you! -- to form a clear vision of what you want from your dog (or ML/AI system) and how you'll know you've trained it successfully. My previous article discussed the why, now it's time to dive into how to do this first step for ML/AI, with all its gory little sub-steps. This reference guide is densely-packed and long, so feel free to stick to large fonts and headings for a two-minute crash course. Cast of characters: decision-maker, ethicist, ML/AI engineer, analyst, qualitative expert, economist, psychologist, reliability engineer, AI researcher, domain expert, UX specialist, statistician, AI control theorist. The tasks we're about to tackle are the responsibility of the project's responsible adult. That's whoever calls the shots.