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MIT Uses Machine Learning Algorithm To Make TCP Twice As Fast
An anonymous reader writes "MIT is claiming they can make the Internet faster if we let computers redesign TCP/IP instead of coding it by hand. They used machine learning to design a version of TCP that's twice the speed and causes half the delay, even with modern bufferbloated networks. They also claim it's more 'fair.' The researchers have put up a lengthy FAQ and source code where they admit they don't know why the system works, only that it goes faster than normal TCP."
Colossus: The Forbin Project
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's not that we don't understand *why* something like a genetic-algorithm designed antenna works so well. We can evaluate its performance using Maxwell's equations and say, "Yes, it works well." without ever having to build the thing. What we don't have is a set of guidelines or 'rules of thumb' that can result in an antenna design that works just as well.
The difference is that the computer evaluates a billion antennas for us, doing some sort of high-dimensional genetic optimisation on the various lengths of the antenna components. It doesn't 'understand' why it gets the results it does. We do, because we understand Maxwell's equations and we understand how genetic optimisation works. But Maxwell's equations only work for evaluating a design, not for giving a tweak which will improve it. And we're dealing with too many variables that are unknown to have a closed-form solution.
As for this algorithm, they basically did the same thing. They defined a fitness function and then repeatedly varied the code they were using to find the best sequence of code. However, unlike the antenna analogy, they used actual equipment to evaluate the fitness function, not just a model. This means that they don't have an accurate model, which means that your complaint that we don't know why this works is entirely valid, and the antenna analogy is not =)
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
The blurb says it "redesigns TCP/IP", and the article itself specifically says "congestion control". Which is NOT part of TCP/IP design. Congestion control is a routing feature.
Seriously, it's both incredible how wrong you are with that statement and that somebody rated it as informative. I suggest you read up on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_congestion_avoidance_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_window http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5681
You should go talk to Intel or AMD about your opinions on the matter, because I assure you that the specific layout of their chips is based on machine learning algorithms. No human can realistically optimize circuits containing a billion transistors.
As a matter of fact, I recall genetic algorithms being thrown at rather small circuit design problems and producing solutions that were better than any human had come up with. Ah yes, here it is: Sorting networks and the END search algorithm.
-- "Even a 25-year old result for the upper bound on the number of comparators for the 13-input case has been improved by one comparator"
"His name was James Damore."
Um, what? It most certainly is machine learning. Your "simulation" is an offline machine learning algorithm which, given input parameters, finds the best algorithm in the situation provided. Machine learning isn't strictly online algorithms, and it most certainly isn't "systems that learn from and adapt to real world networks of networks", which I'm having a hard time even parsing.