Break into AI

Linear regression may be the key statistical method in machine learning, but it didn’t get to be that way without a fight. Two eminent mathematicians claimed credit for it, and 200 years later the matter remains unresolved.

Let’s get this out of the way: A brain is not a cluster of graphics processing units, and if it were, it would run software far more complex than the typical artificial neural network. Yet neural networks were inspired by the brain’s architecture.

Imagine hiking in the mountains past dusk and finding that you can’t see much beyond your feet. And your phone’s battery died so you can’t use a GPS app to find your way home. You might find the quickest path down via gradient descent.

There was a moment when logistic regression was used to classify just one thing: If you drink a vial of poison, are you likely to be labeled “living” or “deceased”? Times have changed.