The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

by Pedro Domingos

Machine-learning experts (aka machine learners) are an elite priesthood even among computer scientists. Many computer scientists, particularly those of an older generation, don’t understand machine learning as well as they’d like to. This is because computer science has traditionally been all about thinking deterministically, but machine learning requires thinking statistically.

He was also involved in the development of backpropagation, an even better algorithm than Boltzmann machines for solving the credit-assignment problem that we’ll look at next.