Ben Recht • 12/9/2025

There is no data-generating distribution

The article is a reflection from a professor's final lecture on machine learning, arguing against the standard assumption of a 'data-generating distribution.' It discusses how removing this and other field-making myths from the curriculum leads to a more honest, distribution-free understanding of ML, focusing on populations, samples, and the engineer's role in creating or imagining randomness.

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#Machine Learning #teaching #statistics