Better Machine Learning Through Data (Saleema Amershi)

Machine learning is the product of both an algorithm and data. While machine learning research tends to focus on algorithmic advances, taking the data as given, machine learning practice is quite the opposite. Most of the influence practitioners have in using machine learning to build predictive models comes through interacting with data, including crafting the data used for training and examining results on new data to inform future iterations. In this talk, I will present tools and techniques we have been developing in the Machine Teaching Group at Microsoft Research to support the model building process. I will then discuss some of the open challenges and opportunities in improving the practice of machine learning.