5 ms·

PGMs don't get the same sexy treatment that ML and AI seem to get in pop science articles, so it may be worth stating explicitly that they're very much used in

PGMs don't get the same sexy treatment that ML and AI seem to get in pop science articles, so it may be worth stating explicitly that they're very much used in ML and are intellectually fascinating in their own right. A graphical model can fully describe the distribution and dependences of a model. Why this is important: a graphical model makes it very easy to give a computer your model, and there has been great success over the past two decades in doing just this [1]. Further, Daphne Koller is a serious force in the field, and seems to be a pretty good supervisor, so I'm guessing/hoping she is an interesting/engaging lecturer as well. Though, Stanford CS/Stats students are more able to comment on this last point. [1] http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs/winbugs/contents.shtml http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs/winbugs/contents.shtml

taejo 15y ago
I'm I right to surmise that "graphical" refers to graphs rather than "graphics", or was that just one example in the video?
- jey 15y ago
  Yes, "graphical models" are a formalism for representing and reasoning about probability distributions using graphs.
- gwern 15y ago
  Yes. Confusing, isn't it?
  - dudurocha 15y ago
    For me, as non native English speaker is more confusing. In Portuguese we say grafos(graphs) and gráficos, when we refer to pics and images. And when I read something in English, I wonder if its graphs referring to maths or to pics.
cypherpunks2 15y ago
> Further, Daphne Koller is a serious force in the field, and seems to be a pretty good supervisor, so I'm guessing/hoping she is an interesting/engaging lecturer as well. Though, Stanford CS/Stats students are more able to comment on this last point. What's the source? She's a brilliant researcher, but I've heard quite the opposite about her attitude towards human relationships...
- sabraham 15y ago
  Ah, so I used a 2-degree heuristic to come to that conclusion--I haven't had any first hand experience with her, nor do I have contact with her former students. A few stats professors independently recommended her to me as a supervisor, her students seem to do well, and her research page is more welcoming than most (versus, say Ullman's page: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/ or say, read Brian Ripley's posts on the R mailing list). The one thing I'd add: my experience has been that academics generally have less empathy than others; I'd be interested to hear from old students how she compares to other faculty.
  - pbh 15y ago
    I know a lot of Daphne's former and current students and she seems to be a great advisor who genuinely cares about producing both excellent research and top quality research talent. Further, in the department, I think she is one of the people who cares most about teaching. She runs the undergraduate summer research program. She re-does her class on PGMs substantially almost every time she teaches it to try to make it better. (Though such a high rate of change may or may not be a good idea.) Daphne is almost certainly one of the key people behind the *-class effort at Stanford CS. For those with a negative impression of Daphne, my guess is just that they are misinterpreting her directness. If she thinks you're wrong, or you're doing the wrong research, you'll know about it. (Also, Ullman is one of the nicest people in the department in person, which is crazy given that he wrote the standard texts in compilers, databases, and arguably automata. He's emeritus these days though.)
    - sabraham 15y ago

taejo 15y ago

I'm I right to surmise that "graphical" refers to graphs rather than "graphics", or was that just one example in the video?

jey 15y ago
Yes, "graphical models" are a formalism for representing and reasoning about probability distributions using graphs.
gwern 15y ago
Yes. Confusing, isn't it?
- dudurocha 15y ago
  For me, as non native English speaker is more confusing. In Portuguese we say grafos(graphs) and gráficos, when we refer to pics and images. And when I read something in English, I wonder if its graphs referring to maths or to pics.

cypherpunks2 15y ago

> Further, Daphne Koller is a serious force in the field, and seems to be a pretty good supervisor, so I'm guessing/hoping she is an interesting/engaging lecturer as well. Though, Stanford CS/Stats students are more able to comment on this last point. What's the source? She's a brilliant researcher, but I've heard quite the opposite about her attitude towards human relationships...

sabraham 15y ago
Ah, so I used a 2-degree heuristic to come to that conclusion--I haven't had any first hand experience with her, nor do I have contact with her former students. A few stats professors independently recommended her to me as a supervisor, her students seem to do well, and her research page is more welcoming than most (versus, say Ullman's page: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/ or say, read Brian Ripley's posts on the R mailing list). The one thing I'd add: my experience has been that academics generally have less empathy than others; I'd be interested to hear from old students how she compares to other faculty.
- pbh 15y ago
  I know a lot of Daphne's former and current students and she seems to be a great advisor who genuinely cares about producing both excellent research and top quality research talent. Further, in the department, I think she is one of the people who cares most about teaching. She runs the undergraduate summer research program. She re-does her class on PGMs substantially almost every time she teaches it to try to make it better. (Though such a high rate of change may or may not be a good idea.) Daphne is almost certainly one of the key people behind the *-class effort at Stanford CS. For those with a negative impression of Daphne, my guess is just that they are misinterpreting her directness. If she thinks you're wrong, or you're doing the wrong research, you'll know about it. (Also, Ullman is one of the nicest people in the department in person, which is crazy given that he wrote the standard texts in compilers, databases, and arguably automata. He's emeritus these days though.)
  - sabraham 15y ago