The Machine Learning Guide to Fine Dining

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Can insights from machine learning guide us in human decision-making? We explore this question in the context of fine dining. We will illustrate selected ML algorithms by applying them to real-life problems such as how to choose a restaurant, whether to trust server recommendations, and when to go with a favorite dish or try something new. Rani Nelken is Director of Research at Outbrain where he works on the advanced algorithms behind the company's recommendation technology. Prior to that he was a research fellow at Harvard University. He has worked at IBM Research and several startups. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the Technion in 2001.

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The Machine Learning Guide to Fine Dining

Rani Nelken

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Motivation

Human decision making

Machine Learning

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How to pick the best restaurant?

Trust your server’s recommendations?

Stick with a favorite or try a new dish?

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Best restaurant for a group of friends?

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Ensemble methods and rank aggregation

Group restaurant

choice

ElectionsMeta-searchCombining classifiers

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Borda count: consensus over majority

Candidate John Paul George

1st Choice A A C2nd Choice B C A3rd Choice C B B

A: ASTAB: Grill 23 & BarC: Craigie on Main

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Borda count

Restaurant John Paul George Score

1st Choice A A C 32nd Choice B C A 23rd Choice C B B 1

Candidate ScoreA 3+3+2=8C 1+2+3=6B 2+1+1=4

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Beyond Borda Count

• Partial lists

• Uneven comparisons

• Enhanced Heuristics

• Efficiency

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More holistic view: Markov Chains

AB C

Edges represent preference

Self-edges

Nodes representrestaurants

Find stationary distribution using power method

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How to pick the best restaurant?

Stick with a favorite or try a new dish?

Trust your server’s recommendations?

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Bayesian classification

Trust server’s

recs?

Document classification

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Flip the problem using Bayes’ rule

• Instead of

estimate

• Reminder:

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Naïve Bayes

• How to estimate?

• Reduce to liking individual ingredients

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What about unknown ingredients?

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Solution: Laplace smoothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPldwfoddw

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How to pick the best restaurant?

Trust your server’s recommendations?

Stick with a favorite or try a new dish?

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Multi-arm Bandits

When to choose a

new dish?

Website optimization, Clinical trials

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ε-Greedy

ExploitFavorite

Usually

With low probability

ExploreNew

New dish 1

New dish 2

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How to choose between unknown dishes?Information used

Sophistication

ε-greedy

SoftmaxDishes’ previous success ratio

Dishes’ #triesUCB

GLM UCBModel of unseen dishes

Contextual bandits

Bayesian sampling

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Strategy for unknown dishes

• Prior estimate for based on ingredients

• Optimistic correction

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Life lessons from bandits

• Optimism in the face of uncertainty

• Minimize regret relative to other strategies

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Summary

Human decision making

Machine Learning

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Thank you

@RaniNelkenRani Nelken