The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World - Hardcover

Domingos, Pedro

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465065708 ISBN 13: 9780465065707

Publisher: Basic Books, 2015

Synopsis

Algorithms increasingly run our lives. They find books, movies, jobs, and dates for us, manage our investments, and discover new drugs. More and more, these algorithms work by learning from the trails of data we leave in our newly digital world. Like curious children, they observe us, imitate, and experiment. And in the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask.Machine learning is the automation of discovery,the scientific method on steroids,that enables intelligent robots and computers to program themselves. No field of science today is more important yet more shrouded in mystery. Pedro Domingos, one of the field's leading lights, lifts the veil for the first time to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone. He charts a course through machine learning's five major schools of thought, showing how they turn ideas from neuroscience, evolution, psychology, physics, and statistics into algorithms ready to serve you. Step by step, he assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner,the Master Algorithm,and discusses what it means for you, and for the future of business, science, and society.If data-ism is today's rising philosophy, this book will be its bible. The quest for universal learning is one of the most significant, fascinating, and revolutionary intellectual developments of all time. A ground-breaking book, The Master Algorithm is the essential guide for anyone and everyone wanting to understand not just how the revolution will happen, but how to be at its forefront.

About this title

Review

"Pedro Domingos demystifies machine learning and shows how wondrous and exciting the future will be."--Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators

"An impressive and wide-ranging work that covers everything from the history of machine learning to the latest technical advances in the field."--Daily Beast

"Domingos writes with verve and passion."--New Scientist

"Unlike other books that proclaim a bright future, this one actually gives you what you need to understand the changes that are coming."--Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google and coauthor of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

"Domingos is the perfect tour guide from whom you will learn everything you need to know about this exciting field, and a surprising amount about science and philosophy as well."--Duncan Watts, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, and author of Six Degrees and Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer

"[The Master Algorithm] does a good job of examining the field's five main techniques.... The subject is meaty and the author...has a knack for introducing concepts at the right moment."--The Economist

"Domingos is a genial and amusing guide, who sneaks us around the backstage areas of the science in order to witness the sometimes personal (and occasionally acrimonious) tenor of research on the subject in recent decades."--Times Higher Education

"An exhilarating venture into groundbreaking computer science." --Booklist, starred review

"[An] enthusiastic but not dumbed-down introduction to machine learning... lucid and consistently informative... With wit, vision, and scholarship, Domingos describes how these scientists are creating programs that allow a computer to teach itself. Readers...will discover fascinating insights."
--Kirkus Reviews

"This book is a must have to learn machine learning without equation. It will help you get the big picture of the several learning paradigms. Finally, the provocative idea is not only intriguing, but also very well argued."--Data Mining Research

About the Author

Pedro Domingos is a professor of computer science at the University of Washington. He is a winner of the SIGKDD Innovation Award, the highest honour in data science. A fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, he lives near Seattle.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0465065708
• ISBN 13: 9780465065707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352