Ben Recht is a researcher and writer exploring the history, theory, and practice of decision-making by humans and machines. On arg min, he covers optimization, machine learning, cybernetics, and occasional reflections on music and culture.
26 articles from this blog
A professor shares open research problems inspired by his graduate machine learning class, focusing on design-based ML and competitive testing theory.
A lecture reflection on the gap between mathematical theory and practical engineering in machine learning, arguing for social analysis over functional analysis.
A machine learning professor critiques the foundational concept of a 'data-generating distribution' and shares insights from teaching a truly distribution-free course.
A critique of Reformist RL's inefficiency and a proposal for more effective alternatives in reinforcement learning.
A simplified, non-technical definition of reinforcement learning as an iterative optimization process based on external feedback.
A technical lecture on applying policy gradient methods to derive optimization algorithms, focusing on the unbiased gradient estimator and its applications.
