In the previous article we were introduced to the Palmer Penguins, their eating habits, and built a recommender system that would serve them their favourite fish. However, the system we built was overly simplistic and assumed a single favourite fish across the population. As we all know, there is no single best of anything. It all comes down to personal preference. In this article we are going to see how to improve the system through contextual multi-armed bandits, which will allow learning the penguins preferences much more granularly than a population average. Read more

With the climate crisis raging on, I bet you are all thinking about the penguins. How are they going to find food with their ecosystem collapsing? It only makes sense that us humans take our responsibility to feed them. However, it would be preferable not to feed them manually, since Antarctica is a somewhat inhospitable place. And what kind of fish do penguins like to eat anyway? Clearly, the best (and most practical) solution to this problem is to apply machine learning, specifically multi-armed bandits, to build an autonomous self-improving fish-recommender system. Read more