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2015 NeurIPS NeurIPS 2015

Hidden Technical Debt in Machine Learning Systems

Machine learning offers a fantastically powerful toolkit for building useful complexprediction systems quickly. This paper argues it is dangerous to think ofthese quick wins as coming for free. Using the software engineering frameworkof technical debt, we find it is common to incur massive ongoing maintenancecosts in real-world ML systems. We explore several ML-specific risk factors toaccount for in system design. These include boundary erosion, entanglement,hidden feedback loops, undeclared consumers, data dependencies, configurationissues, changes in the external world, and a variety of system-level anti-patterns.

🌉 Interdisciplinary Bridge - Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science
📈 Trend Setter - Software Engineering
🐣 Hot Topic Early Bird - software engineering

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