Comment by timr
13 years ago
"We're not just interested in whether A or B is better; we're interesting in getting better at doing what we do."
Absolutely. That's my biggest objection to bandit methods, but it's also the fuzziest objection, and the one least likely to appeal to hyper-analytical people. There's a strong temptation (as we can see from this article) is to treat bandit optimization as a black box that just spits out an infallible answer (i.e. as a Lazy Button).
It's the same human tendency that has led to "you should follow me on twitter" to be one of the more common n-grams on the interwebs (even though it probably never worked for more than Dustin Curtis, and likely causes a counter-intuitive backlash now).
Well put. I get why they don't get it, but from my perspective it looks like technical gold-plating a lot of the time. I generally aim to amplify the power of the human mind, not eliminate it from the system.
Of course, these algorithms are cool in certain contexts where you never want to think about it again. For example, ad placement for a giant ad network running against a lot of UGC content. They remind me of neural networks like that: the post office doesn't care how the machine recognizes hand-written zip codes, just as long as they do it reliably.
But startups are all about learning, and interface design is where you have direct contact with users. I want to soak in the data. I want to hang out in people's living rooms when they're using my site. A fancy Lazy Button (great phrase) is the last thing I need.