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

by Pedro Domingos

“Nature” for a computer is the program it runs, and “nurture” is the data it gets. The question of which one is more important is clearly absurd; there’s no output without both program and data, and it’s not like the output is, say, 60 percent caused by the program and 40 percent by the data. That’s the kind of linear thinking that a familiarity with machine learning immunizes you against.