Course Overview 

Tommi Jaakkola and Shen Shen

July 16, 2025

Modeling with Machine Learning for Computer Science

Spring2025 Student Body Chart: 6.C011/6.C511 

What is this focus on “modeling”?

• Example: we wish to realize a diagnostic helper for a physician 
• Modeling is not: simply applying an off-the-shelf method to a problem (e.g., using a LLM to generate candidate diagnosis for a physician to consider in response to a patient description)
• Modeling is not: developing a new method to address a generic problem (e.g., improving transformer efficiency, making them dynamically configurable)
• Modeling is about relating methods and tasks (e.g., figuring out how that LLM can be made fair or robust, what fine-tuning data to use, how to incorporate physician feedback, etc)

Modeling with Machine Learning

• Frame the task/capability you are after
  ask the right questions, formalize the problem as a learning to predict/control task
• Solve (data + method + optimization)
  select/tailor/design a machine learning method to solve the task with the given data; specify the hypothesis class, objective function, optimization algorithm
• Assess/understand the results
  interpret/analyze the results, whether the method worked/when it is likely to work