Federated Learning

Linear Digressions

This is a re-release of an episode first released in May 2017. As machine learning makes its way into more and more mobile devices, an interesting question presents itself: how can we have an algorithm learn from training data that's being supplied as users interact with the algorithm? In other words, how do we do machine learning when the training dataset is distributed across many devices, imbalanced, and the usage associated with any one user needs to be obscured somewhat to protect the privacy of that user? Enter Federated Learning, a set of related algorithms from Google that are designed to help out in exactly this scenario. If you've used keyboard shortcuts or autocomplete on an Android phone, chances are you've encountered Federated Learning even if you didn't know it.