The LION Way: Machine Learning plus Intelligent Optimization by Roberto Battiti and Mauro Brunato.
From the introduction:
Learning and Intelligent Optimization (LION) is the combination of learning from data and optimization applied to solve complex and dynamic problems. The LION way is about increasing the automation level and connecting data directly to decisions and actions. More power is directly in the hands of decision makers in a self-service manner, without resorting to intermediate layers of data scientists. LION is a complex array of mechanisms, like the engine in an automobile, but the user (driver) does not need to know the inner-workings of the engine in order to realize tremendous benefits. LION’s adoption will create a prairie fire of innovation which will reach most businesses in the next decades. Businesses, like plants in wildfire-prone ecosystems, will survive and prosper by adapting and embracing LION techniques, or they risk being transformed from giant trees to ashes by the spreading competition.
The questions to be asked in the LION paradigm are not about mathematical goodness models but about abundant data, expert judgment of concrete options (examples of success cases), interactive definition of success criteria, at a level which makes a human person at ease with his mental models. For example, in marketing, relevant data can describe the money allocation and success of previous campaigns, in engineering they can describe experiments about motor designs (real or simulated) and corresponding fuel consumption.
OK, the “…prairie fire of innovation…” stuff is a bit over the top but it’s promoting a paradigm.
And I’m not unsympathetic to making tools easier for users to use.
Although, I must confess that people who choose a “self-service” model for complex information processing are likely to get the results they deserve (but don’t want).
Like most people I can “type” after a fashion. I don’t look at the keyboard and do use all ten fingers. But, compared to a professional typist of my youth, I am not even an entry level typist. A professional typist could produce far more error free content in a couple of hours than I can all day.
Odd how “self-service” works out to putting more of a burden on the user for a poorer result.
The book is free and worth a read.
I first saw this at KDNuggets.