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I am more familiar with her older work on ranking and boosting. I do not have any technical commentary to add, just a personal anecdote that she is one of the nicest, warmest person that I have met. I wish her well with utmost sincerity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is $1 Million respectable?
Can money buy respectability? If I awarded $1 Million to a random person every year, receiving that award wouldn't make that person more accomplished, and the award wouldn't be mentioned outside the local newspaper. On the other hand an award that gives no money but consistently awards the best researcher in the field can be very noteworthy. What the $1 million does accomplish is make people pay attention, so everyon…
I wish one day I'll read that Computer Scientist _earns_ $1 Million. Most engineers here get like £60k salary (£3600 a month after PAYE tax), while companies they work for make billions out of their work. Not only that, but they also don't contribute back into the local communities, because they use aggressive tax avoidance strategies. Corporations need to start sharing their profits with the workers and pay taxes ot…
When Hinton, Krishevsky, and Sutskever sold DNNresearch (incorporated only days before) to Google, their $44 million crossed that line too, since the company had no products or IP that was independent of UToronto, AFAIK. The three were effectively "hired" as indep contributors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can money buy respectability? If I awarded $1 Million to a random person every year, receiving that award wouldn't make that person more accomplished, and the award wouldn't be mentioned outside the local newspaper. On the other hand an award that gives no money but consistently awards the best researcher in the field can be very noteworthy. What the $1 million does accomplish is make people pay attention, so everyon…
> Can money buy respectability? Definitely!
My fondest memory of Cynthia, however, has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with just being a kind person. We were at the NEC Research Institute's company picnic where they had an inflatable dragon for the kids to jump around within its interior. Me, Cynthia, and my wife went inside without any kids and jumped around like idiots for a while. Cynthia and my wife got bored, so I stayed behind for One More Big Bounce. With the epic bounce, I also succeeded in cracking a vertebra, nearly passing out on the spot from the pain. Eventually, I would crawl out, an ambulance was called, and I was brought to the Princeton ER.
I would have a full recovery, but I was in the ER for several hours that night. Cynthia came with us to the ER, and when she saw how uncomfortable I was on the gurney, she went back to her dorm to retrieve her favorite blanket, so that I would have even a small comfort. I am not sure how long she stayed, but I know that she was there with me longer than anyone else except my wife.
Anyhow, she's a lovely human being and I am honored and proud to have known her and witnessed the origins of her career.
I was also one of Cynthia's Ph.D. advisors when she was a graduate student at Princeton, some twenty years ago. It was obvious to me then that she would go on to do great things, so it's delightful to read this news this morning. My fondest memory of Cynthia, however, has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with just being a kind person. We were at the NEC Research Institute's company picnic where they h…
Is this a respected prize? I never heard of it before. That said, no doubt that explainable ML/AI is important.
Is this a respected prize? It's a very new prize (this is only the second winner), so it's still too early to tell. But is backed by a reasonably respectable organization.
Respectability of the prize will arise mostly from the people who receive the prizes, not from the organization itself. Would you like to receive the same prize that got all these other geniuses?
The Nobel is respectable because so many great scientists got it. The composition of the Nobel committee is irrelevant, as long as they keep giving the prize to the best.
Congratulations! I think Interpretable AI mentioned in the article is what is commonly called explainable AI.
Cynthia has a great paper where she distinguishes between "interpretable" and "explainable" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.10154.pdf
But Rudin's Premise is philosophical more than practical. If the problem at hand is better solved using a black box (in terms of accuracy, precision, robustness, etc), her premise says simply, don't do it. Unfortunately in the cutthroat world of capitalism, that strategy can't compete with the cutting edge.
Where Rudin's Premise is more suitable is in writing regulations to address AI app problems where social unfairness is unchecked (like the COMPAS app that advises legal authorities on meting out parole decisions without explaining its reasoning). There are many such (ab)uses for AI today in social services or policing which merit rethinking since AI-based injustice so offer bedevils the proprietary lack of transparency in such apps.
Another excellent discussion of problems like these is Cathy O'Neil's book "Weapons of Math Destruction". Too bad she couldn't share the Squirrel prize. https://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Math-Destruction-Increases-In...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is $1 Million respectable?
Can money buy respectability? If I awarded $1 Million to a random person every year, receiving that award wouldn't make that person more accomplished, and the award wouldn't be mentioned outside the local newspaper. On the other hand an award that gives no money but consistently awards the best researcher in the field can be very noteworthy. What the $1 million does accomplish is make people pay attention, so everyon…
Is this a respected prize? I never heard of it before. That said, no doubt that explainable ML/AI is important.