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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

Seminar

Machine Learning, Monte Carlo, and Blackbox Optimization

David Wolpert
NASA Ames Institute and CNLS

In this talk I explore the relationship between Machine-Learning (ML), Monte Carlo Optimization of a parametrized integral (MCO), and `blackbox' optimization (BO - the kind of optimization one typically addresses with GA's or simulated annealing). First, I show how to transform any BO problem into an MCO problem. Second, I show that MCO is formally identical to ML. These two results provide a way to apply many powerful ML techniques to BO. In particular, I show how to exploit cross-validation and bagging for BO. I end by showing how using any (?) type of Monte Carlo to estimate an integral can be improved by using the ML technique of stacking.

Host: CNLS