This is going to be a very meta comment. You have been warned.<p>The whole field of machine learning makes me kind of nervous. The problem is that the created systems seem kinda magical (quote Clarke, I double dare you). Even their creators don&#x27;t seem to really understand what goes on in them. It&#x27;s build it and see what comes out. It&#x27;s heuristics all the way down.<p>My feeling: the lack of predictability that results makes these technologies good, but not great. It&#x27;s why Google&#x27;s search results still suck. Why suggestion engines are not always super smart or painfully transparent.<p>If one system in isolation is already hard to predict, what about interacting systems? Increasingly, our experience is shaped by these systems (search result customization etc). Isn&#x27;t there a vicious feedback loop in there somewhere that pushes us somewhere at the whim of the un-understandable interactions of un-understandable machines?