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From a business perspective, it doesn't matter if Kaggle is flawed. What matters is whether they can convince customers to buy in to their ideas and fund their
by stupidhed 14y ago
From a business perspective, it doesn't matter if Kaggle is flawed. What matters is whether they can convince customers to buy in to their ideas and fund their business.
In other words, more Snake Oil from the computer industry. In some (most?) cases, the salesmen may even believe that the Oil works. That is, they may not be acting fraudulently, but just foolishly (as are their clients who believe the hype).
Overconfidence in math and computers to solve problems that are not suited to be solved this way. In some ways this is partly responsible for the global financial mess. Reliance on models that quants and their bosses would defend vigorously, because they work to make money for the bosses (because clients believe the hype), but which are, overall, in the long run, not sound.
- jacques_chester 14y agoIt's easy to say all this in hindsight, but humans are actually not very good at extracting valid patterns from large masses of data. Yet we more and more need to do so. Kaggle has taken an important niche and created a market for buyers and sellers. I was skeptical when I first saw it mentioned but then, I'm usually amazed when anything succeeds. :D
- tensor 14y agoOverconfidence in flawed human intuition is equally if not more dangerous. Math and algorithms done correctly are unbiased, unlike humans. Economics, unlike much of machine learning and computer science, is often based on very loose base assumptions. Hence the flaws. Science and math have varying levels of rigor depending on the domain. On the other hand, not using them has a consistent outcome: guessing and ignorance.