Big Data Algorithms: Too Complicated to Communicate?

11 Apr

“A decision is made about you, and you have no idea why it was done,” said Rajeev Date, an investor in data-science lenders and a former deputy director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

From NYT: If Algorithms Know All, How Much Should Humans Help?

The assertion that there is no intuition behind decisions made by algorithms strikes me as silly. So does the related assertion that such intuition cannot be communicated effectively. We can back out the logic for most algorithms. Heuristic accounts of the logic — e.g. which variables were important — can be given yet more easily. For instance, for inference from seemingly complicated-to-interpret methods such as ensemble methods, intuition for what variables are important can be gotten in the same way as it is gotten for methods like bagging. However, even when specific points are hard to convey, the meta-logic of the system can be explained to the end user.

What is true, however, is that it isn’t being done. For instance, WSJ covering Orion routing system at UPS reports:

“For example, some drivers don’t understand why it makes sense to deliver a package in one neighborhood in the morning, and come back to the same area later in the day for another delivery. …One driver, who declined to speak for attribution, said he has been on Orion since mid-2014 and dislikes it, because it strikes him as illogical.”

WSJ: At UPS, the Algorithm Is the Driver

Communication architecture is an essential part of all human focused systems. And what to communicate when are important questions that deserve careful thought. The default cannot be no communication.

The lack of systems that communicate intuition behind algorithms strikes me as a great opportunity. HCI people — make some money.