Machine learning research has yielded many useful algorithms and techniques for solving difficult real-world problems. In this talk, I will discuss how we make practical use of machine learning at Netflix to personalize recommendations for millions of users every day. I will provide a high-level overview of machine learning and discuss the steps involved in applying it to solve real problems. I will then highlight how we use this approach to create a personalized ranking for each user to maximize the user streaming experience. Finally, I will discuss the Cognitive Foundry, an open source software library designed to simplify the use of machine learning algorithms for variety of applications.
Bio:
Justin Basilico (‘02) is a Senior Software Engineer in the Personalization Science and Engineering group at Netflix where he does applied research for personalized ranking using machine learning. He received his Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Pomona College in 2002 and Master’s in Computer Science from Brown University in 2004. Prior to his position at Netflix, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Cognitive Systems group at Sandia National Laboratories. He is also the co-creator of the Cognitive Foundry, an open-source software library for building intelligent systems.