Training Your Smart Search System
August 2, 2014
With the increasing chatter about smart software, I want to call to your attention this article, “Improving the Way Neural Networks Learn.” Keep in mind that some probabilistic search systems have to be trained on content that closely resembles the content the system will index. The training is important, and training can be time consuming. The licensee has to create a training set of data that is similar to what the software will index. Then the training process is run, a human checks the system outputs, and makes “adjustments.” If the training set is not representative, the indexing will be off. If the human makes corrections that are wacky, then the indexing will be off. When the system is turned loose, the resulting index may return outputs that are not what the user expected or the outputs are incorrect. Whether the system uses knows enough to recognize incorrect results varies from human to human.
If you want to have a chat with your vendor regarding the time required to train or re-train a search system relying on sample content, print out this article. If the explanation does not make much sense to you, you can document off query results sets, complain to the search system vendor, or initiate a quick fix. Note that quick fixes involve firing humans believed to be responsible for the system, initiate a new search procurement, or pretend that the results are just fine. I suppose there are other options, but I have encountered these three approach seasoned with either legal action or verbal grousing to the vendor. Even when the automated indexing is tuned within an inch of its life, accuracy is likely to start out in the 85 to 90 percent range and then degrade.
Training can be a big deal. Ignoring the “drift” that occurs when the smart software has been taught or learned something that distorts the relevance of results can produce some sharp edges.
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2014
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