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Poster

Position Paper: The Amazing Things That Come From Having Many Good Models

Cynthia Rudin · Chudi Zhong · Lesia Semenova · Margo Seltzer · Ron Parr · Jiachang Liu · Srikar Katta · Jon Donnelly · Harry Chen · Zachery Boner


Abstract:

The Rashomon Effect, as coined by Leo Breiman, is the existence of many equally good predictive models for the same dataset. This phenomenon happens for many real datasets and when it does, it sparks both magic and consternation, but mostly magic. In light of the Rashomon Effect, this perspective piece proposes reshaping the way we think about machine learning, particularly for tabular data problems in the nondeterministic setting. We address how the Rashomon Effect impacts (1) the existence of simple-yet-accurate models, (2) flexibility to address user preferences, such as fairness and monotonicity, without losing accuracy, (3) uncertainty in predictions, fairness and explanations, and (4) reliable variable importance, (5) algorithm choice, specifically providing advanced knowledge of which algorithms might be suitable for a given problem, (6) public policy. We also discuss a theory of when the Rashomon Effect occurs and why. Our goal is to illustrate how the Rashomon Effect can have a massive impact on the use of machine learning for complex problems in society.

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