
Using Google Cloud AutoML to Classify Poisonous Australian Spiders - mattfrasernz
https://shinesolutions.com/2018/03/14/using-google-cloud-automl-vision-to-classify-poisonous-australian-spiders/
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michaelgreen
This is huge, and it's only an alpha. I begun reading about AutoML/Neural
Architecture searches around ~year ago and something I've been thinking about
is:

Why doesn't this just move the optimization problem? Aren't you now just
optimizing your DeepRL network rather than the network you're trying to
optimize?

~~~
nl
The idea of AutoML (in this case[1]) is to improve the NN architecture for a
given type of problem.

In "normal" machine learning this is basically hyperparmater optimization for
a given dataset (eg, the depth of a random forest, XGB parameters, the best
random seed/jk )

In this case is tests different combinations of operators on a known dataset
to see what performs the best. So it is optimizing the prediction network

(Also this isn't DeepRL, it's a deep neural network. I think that was a typo)

[1] [https://research.googleblog.com/2017/05/using-machine-
learni...](https://research.googleblog.com/2017/05/using-machine-learning-to-
explore.html)

~~~
michaelgreen
Jeff Dean talks about AutoML using RL and in the paper " Neural Architecture
Search with Reinforcement Learning" it also talks about this.

Also it seems different from more traditional hyperparameter optimization
because it makes novel cells. So the structure of the network isn't limited to
our existing library of layers/cells.

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.01578](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.01578)
[https://youtu.be/HcStlHGpjN8?t=2073](https://youtu.be/HcStlHGpjN8?t=2073)

~~~
nl
"Novel Cells" are combinations of existing operators.

It's entirely true that these are combinations that humans haven't (and
probably wouldn't) come up with.

I don't want to underplay this. "It's similar to hyperparameter search" makes
it sound like it isn't interesting or novel, which is untrue. I completely
believe it is a revolutionary way to build software (so much so that I quit my
job, raised funding and are working on a similar space of problems).

But it isn't doing something like inventing a new math operations similar to
the other operators which humans put together to form cells/layers. It is
rearranging and choosing those operators in new ways.

~~~
michaelgreen
Okay I see what you're saying and I completely agree.

~~~
nl
You maybe interested in their most recent paper and blog post from today:
[https://research.googleblog.com/2018/03/using-
evolutionary-a...](https://research.googleblog.com/2018/03/using-evolutionary-
automl-to-discover.html)

~~~
michaelgreen
Wow thanks, reading it now (:

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Zhenya
Something like this could actually save lives. Take a photo of what bit you,
then the app could provide an answer (with a confidence level) of "do I need
to go to the hospital" and provide a few example apps for various matches with
level of danger.

Thanks for sharing!

~~~
dbaupp
I don't think it is actually likely to save lives, because spiders _very_
rarely kill. As far as I can tell, there's been one death from a spider bite
in Australia in 40 years: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-
man-dies-a...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-man-dies-
after-spider-bite-during-australian-bushwalk/) .

~~~
thomasfoster96
That’s probably because it’s fairly widely known (in Australia) that if you’re
bitten by a red-back or funnel-web spider that you seek medical attention, as
you would for a venomous snake. A quickly treated bite is almost never fatal.

The app helps people make the decision as to whether its a harmless spider or
something that requires urgent medical attention.

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murukesh_s
But what if you are in between a trek or in woods? Are there generic anti-
venom kits available that you can carry?

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thomasfoster96
If you’re going bush walking, you’d usually take a snake bite bandage. If
you’re otherwise healthy and have other people with you, you’ve got a few
hours to get yourself to a hospital or ambulance.

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bastih
I like the content of this blog post, but the use of stock photos was really
off-putting and I had to almost force myself to keep on reading.

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juskrey
Isn't that something available in, say, Mathematica in 3 lines of code?
[https://wolfram.com/language/11/image-and-signal-
processing/...](https://wolfram.com/language/11/image-and-signal-
processing/image-recognition-using-deep-learning.html)

~~~
nl
No.

The example there is 7 lines (counting the NN description as one line). That's
using a (easy) pre-existing dataset too, and a primative neural network.

That's roughly the same as in Python using something like the fast.ai library.
I think that comes for 4 lines (not including data wrangling or inputs):

data = ImageClassifierData.from_paths(PATH, tfms=tfms_from_model(arch, sz))
learn = ConvLearner.pretrained(arch, data, precompute=True) learn.fit(0.01, 2)
log_preds = learn.predict()

See [1]

Also note that this AutoML version uses zero lines of code.

[1]
[https://github.com/fastai/fastai/blob/master/courses/dl1/les...](https://github.com/fastai/fastai/blob/master/courses/dl1/lesson1.ipynb)

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gajju3588
Auto labeling would be way forward for Supervised Algorithms. Get some data to
annotate from your team, and tag rest of them using auto-labeling.
[https://dataturks.com/](https://dataturks.com/) could be such player, Not
sure how will these survive in front of Google.

~~~
nl
There's no such thing as auto-labeling.

Data Turks is manual labeling.

There is active learning[1] and related algorithms where you trace the
boundary of your classifier and pass examples along that boundary to be
manually labeled (as they are the ones the classifier is most unsure about).

But there is nothing "auto" about this - it's just being smart about where to
deploy the manual labor.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning_(machine_learn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning_\(machine_learning\))

~~~
gajju3588
Lets say we want to create a labeled data for text summarization for medium
articles. Could the highlighted part be used as summary, its not auto labeled
per se, but can be a proxy and passed to labelers to verify/edit.

~~~
nl
Sure. There are lots of useful proxies for labeled data.

It's worth noting that highlighted sections in Medium articles probably aren't
great summaries (they are more a representation of important points - which is
a useful thing to predict as well).

For example, many summarizer systems are trained on the single-line summaries
given in news media systems. There have been attempts to use Tweets as
summaries for linked articles too.

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thejosh
How long does it take to get access to AutoML?

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rrmoelker
Does anyone know a bit more about the pricing? All I can find online is Google
learning infrastructure cost.

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neurostimulant
Is it possible to export the trained model from AutoML for offline use?

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milesokeefe
They haven't come to a decision as to whether that will be offered AFAIK. I
really hope they decide to allow downloading the model.

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dzhiurgis
If pictures are already from Google, wouldn't it be simpler to post image to
Google's Vision API and then grep results against the list of poisonous
spiders?

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skeleton
I'm surprised someone is yet to point out the error of using the word
poisonous instead of venomous. I suppose it's not important to the article.

~~~
socceroos
Although, if you do decide to nibble one you may find it is indeed
disagreeable.

