Netflix just awarded a cool million to a 7-member team who managed to devise algorithms that improved the prediction of user's ratings of movies by 10% compared to Netflix's own Cinematch algorithm, the endgame of a 4-year long contest (see NYTimes).
Isn't it time that Facebook sets up a contest of its own? With its database of human connections, Facebook can challenge the machine learning community to predict friendship: reveal 90% of each user's friends, and have the algorithm predict the rest 10%. Another challenge is to reveal each user's friends up to a certain date, and have the algorithm predict new friendships that the user forms afterwards. May the most accurate algorithm prevail.
Online dating services can certainly use such an algorithm. Who else? Insurance companies? Banks? Salespeople? How much can you learn about a person from the friends he or she keeps?
Isn't it time that Facebook sets up a contest of its own? With its database of human connections, Facebook can challenge the machine learning community to predict friendship: reveal 90% of each user's friends, and have the algorithm predict the rest 10%. Another challenge is to reveal each user's friends up to a certain date, and have the algorithm predict new friendships that the user forms afterwards. May the most accurate algorithm prevail.
Online dating services can certainly use such an algorithm. Who else? Insurance companies? Banks? Salespeople? How much can you learn about a person from the friends he or she keeps?
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