Daniel Simpson, Professor of Stastical Sciences, University of Toronto

Title and abstract: It is easy to propose a new algorithm for solving a Machine Learning problem. It is much harder to convince other people that the proposed algorithm actually works. The "gold standard" of tight theoretical guarantees is often out of reach. So what do we do? Typically, an algorithm is validated on a couple of test problems and its output is compared with that of algorithms that are known to work. This is not a great strategy.

In this talk, I will outline a general strategy for assessing whether an algorithm for approximate Bayesian computing works on a given problem. This method does not require evaluation of the true posterior and also indicates ways in which the computed posterior systematically deviates from the true posterior.

Machine Learning Coffee seminars are weekly seminars held jointly by the Aalto University and the University of Helsinki. The seminars aim to gather people from different fields of science with interest in machine learning. Talks will begin at 9:15 am and porridge and coffee will be served from 9:00 am.

Next talks:

October 16, Kumpula: Elja Arjas "Probabilistic preference learning with the Mallows rank model"
October 23, Otaniemi: Aristides Gionis
October 30, Kumpula: Guido Consonni

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