The Emerging Science of Machine Learning Benchmarks
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Machine learning turns on one simple trick: Split the data into training and test sets. Anything goes on the training set. Rank models on the test set and let model builders compete. Call it a benchmark. Machine learning researchers cherish a good tradition of lamenting the apparent shortcomings of benchmarks. Critics argue that static test sets and metrics promote narrow research objectives, stifling more creative scientific pursuits. Benchmarks also incentivize gaming; in fact, Goodhart's Law cautions against applying competitive pressure to statistical measurement. Over time, researchers may overfit to benchmarks, building models that exploit data artifacts. As a result, test set performance draws a skewed picture of model capabilities that deceives us—especially when comparing humans and machines. To top off the list of issues, there are a slew of reasons why things don't transfer well from benchmarks to the real world.
| Author(s): | Hardt, Moritz |
| Links: | |
| Year: | 2025 |
| BibTeX Type: | Book (book) |
| State: | Published |
| URL: | https://mlbenchmarks.org/ |
BibTeX
@book{hardt2025emerging,
title = {The Emerging Science of Machine Learning Benchmarks},
abstract = {Machine learning turns on one simple trick: Split the data into training and test sets. Anything goes on the training set. Rank models on the test set and let model builders compete. Call it a benchmark.
Machine learning researchers cherish a good tradition of lamenting the apparent shortcomings of benchmarks. Critics argue that static test sets and metrics promote narrow research objectives, stifling more creative scientific pursuits. Benchmarks also incentivize gaming; in fact, Goodhart's Law cautions against applying competitive pressure to statistical measurement. Over time, researchers may overfit to benchmarks, building models that exploit data artifacts. As a result, test set performance draws a skewed picture of model capabilities that deceives us—especially when comparing humans and machines. To top off the list of issues, there are a slew of reasons why things don't transfer well from benchmarks to the real world.},
year = {2025},
author = {Hardt, Moritz},
url = {https://mlbenchmarks.org/}
}