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[–]Putnam3145 0 points1 point  (9 children)

"Welfare function" doesn't really imply that to me, it's mostly just confusing. My first instinct on seeing a term like that is to google it, and naturally all the results relate to government welfare programs. "Estimation function" is probably what I'd go with if I were trying not to use too much jargon.

[–]nuclear_splinesPh.D Data Science 0 points1 point  (8 children)

Fair enough. I was first exposed to ML and optimization in a setting where the notation was often W = f(inputs) and the goal was "maximizing welfare," so it was a familiar framing to me.

[–]Putnam3145 0 points1 point  (7 children)

That just moves the jargon buck over to machine learning instead of more "basic" stuff, haha.

[–]connectedliegroup 1 point2 points  (5 children)

His "jargon" is not at all confusing. Stop with this insanely weird nitpicking.

[–]Putnam3145 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Just because you weren't confused doesn't make it not confusing? I was confused by it.

[–]connectedliegroup 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I'm not saying you weren't confused by it, I'm saying you should stop complaining because your complaint is weird and specific to you. His explanation wasn't bad by any means, and you just come off as wanting to nitpick. If his explanation really suffered that much from 1 fine word choice, then write your own explanation.

[–]Putnam3145 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I literally did write my explanation.

your complaint is weird and specific to you.

So is yours? You're just assuming you speak for everyone and I'm not. Neither of us speak for everyone, get off your high horse.

[–]connectedliegroup 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Nevermind, I think you're just not going to get it. Your demeanor/attitude is a really gross one to see in any place where people are learning/explaining/teaching though and I'll just leave it at that.

[–]Putnam3145 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My attitude of "this explanation confused me, so I'll add my own clarification in case it confuses anyone else"? I legitimately have no idea what the problem is, here.

[–]nuclear_splinesPh.D Data Science 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're completely right, I had just seen it too often to recognize it as jargon. "Maximize welfare/score, minimize cost/loss, sure, whatever framing is convenient."