A conversation with Quants, Thinkers and Innovators all challenged to innovate in turbulent times!

Join QuantUniversity for a complimentary fall speaker series where you will hear from Quants, innovators, startups and Fintech experts on various topics in Quant Investing, Machine Learning, Optimization, Fintech, AI etc. 

Machine Learning Interpretability -

Self-Explanatory Models: Interpretability, Diagnostics and Simplification

With Agus Sudjianto, Wells Fargo

The deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved great success in learning complex patterns with strong predictive power, but they are often thought of as "black box"models without a sufficient level of transparency and interpretability. It is important to demystify the DNNs with rigorous mathematics and practical tools, especially when they are used for mission-critical applications. This talk aims to unwrap the black box of deep ReLU networks through exact local linear representation, which utilizes the activation pattern and disentangles the complex network into an equivalent set of local linear models (LLMs). We develop a convenient LLM-based toolkit for interpretability, diagnostics, and simplification of a pre-trained deep ReLU network. We propose the local linear profile plot and other visualization methods for interpretation and diagnostics, and an effective merging strategy for network simplification. The proposed methods are demonstrated by simulation examples, benchmark datasets, and a real case study in credit risk assessment. The paper that will be presented in this talk can be found here.