Illustration of Christmas gifts
Letters

Setting Learning Goals

We here at deeplearning.ai wish you a wonderful holiday season. As you consider your New Year’s resolutions and set goals for 2020, consider not just what you want to do, but what you want to learn...
Andrew Ng and other speakers at the NeurIPS 2019 conference
Letters

NeurIPS Grows Up

I’ve been reflecting on the NeurIPS 2019 conference, which ended on Saturday. It’s always a wonderful event, but this year I found it a bittersweet experience. Bitter because the conference has grown so much that we no longer focus on...
Pie & AI event on AI ethics
Letters

AI Ethics Must Be Actionable

I’ve been thinking about AI and ethics. With the techlash and an erosion of trust in technology as a positive force, it’s more important than ever that we make sure the AI community acts ethically.
Andrew Ng holding a sweatshirt that says "Trust the robot"
Letters

Building Trustworthy AI

Recently I wrote about major reasons why AI projects fail, such as small data, robustness, and change management. Given that some AI systems don't work, users and customers sometimes rightly wonder whether they should trust an AI system.
Illustration of a robotic pigeon and a "happy thanksgiving" message from DeepLearning.AI
Letters

AI Topics for Dinner-Table Discussion

I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with Nova and watching her taste turkey for the first time. To those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you spend time with loved ones, reflect on what you are thankful for, and discuss some very important...
Road sign with the text "new way"
Letters

Why AI Projects Fail, Part 5: Change Management

My last two letters explored robustness and small data as common reasons why AI projects fail. In the final letter of this three-part series, I’d like to discuss change management.
Charts with data explaining how ML works with data distribution
Letters

Why AI Projects Fail, Part 4: Small Data

In this series exploring why machine learning projects fail, let’s examine the challenge of “small data.” Given 1 million labeled images, many teams can build a good classifier using open source.
Diagram showing what's needed to build a machine learning product
Letters

Why AI Projects Fail, Part 3: Robustness

Building AI systems is hard. Despite all the hype, AI engineers struggle with difficult problems every day. For the next few weeks, I’ll explore some of the major challenges. Today’s topic: The challenge of building AI systems that are robust to real-world conditions.
Illustration of a ghost
Letters

Why AI Projects Fail, Part 2: Uncommon Pitfalls

Welcome to the Halloween edition of The Batch! I promised last week to share some common reasons for AI project failures. But first, let’s start with some of the least common reasons.
Pie & AI and IASI AI cupcakes
Letters

Why AI Projects Fail

I’ve heard this conversation in multiple companies: Machine learning engineer: Look how well I did on the test set! Business owner: But your ML system doesn’t work. This sucks! Machine learning engineer: But look how well I did on the test set!
Drone race
Letters

Does Your Project Bring Joy?

I just replaced my two-year-old phone with a new one and figured out how to take long-exposure photos of Nova even while she’s asleep and the lights are very low. This piece of technology brought me a surprising amount of joy!
DeepScale's automated vehicle technology
Letters

How Should We Manage AI threats?

Last week, I saw a lot of social media discussion about a paper using deep learning to generate artificial comments on news articles. I’m not sure why anyone thinks this is a good idea. At best, it adds noise to the media environment. At worst, it’s a tool for con artists and propagandists.
"No silver bullet" book cover
Letters

Reducing Essential Complexity

Thinking about the future of machine learning programming frameworks, I recently reread computer scientist Fred Brooks’ classic essay, “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering.” Three decades after its initial...
Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom
Letters

Passive Versus Active Learning

I read an interesting paper comparing the results of traditional passive learning (sitting in a lecture) versus active methods like the flipped classroom, where students watch videos at home and work on exercises in class.
Photos from Pie & AI meetup in Kuala Lumpur
Letters

Pie & AI in Kuala Lumpur

Over the weekend, we hosted our first Pie & AI meetup in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in collaboration with the AI Malaysia group, MDEC, and ADAX. The event was part of Malaysia’s AI & Data Week 2019.

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