Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut fuer Artificial Intelligence (OeFAI) Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Wien Tel.+43-1-53532810,5336112 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VORTRAG ******* Prof.Dr.Yves KODRATOFF Directeur de recherche au CNRS Orsay France The Comprehensibility Manifesto or "Comprehensibility in View of Industrial Applications" ------------------------------------------------------ When I had to prepare a talk on industrial applications of Machine Learning, I wanted to underline the main result that showed the deep commonality among all these real world applications, how industrial constraints would force the academics to think differently. To my surprise, some applications request very simple algorithms, others use the most complex multistrategy approaches, some have plenty of noise, for some others the industrial constraint is to forbid any kind of noise, etc. In other words, industrial constraints are varied to an unbelievable point. Only one thing is in common to all industrial applications of Machine Learning: the users demanded comprehensibility of the results of the Machine Learning algorithms, and the greater the comprehensibility, all the more enthusiastic they have been. This is why I suggest to stop giving absolute supremacy to measuring the complexity of the algorithms and the accuracy of their results. Let us be concerned also by the comprehensibility of the software and of the results. The problem is that we do not understand comprehensibility! This is why I propose to stop fleeing from the problem and define comprehensibility as an acknowledged research topic. I will discuss some of the interdisciplinary issues and also some of the pure computer science problems linked to comprehensibility. Zeit: Dienstag, 26.Juli 1994, 18:30 Uhr pktl. Ort: OeFAI, Schottengasse 3, 1010 Wien 1.