Model insights

To me, the model insights are more exciting than building and using the models for prediction. I enjoy learning about the world around me, and ML models (and networks) allow me to understand the world in a way that my eyes do not. We cannot see all of the lines that connect us as people, and we cannot easily understand influence based on how the people around us are strategically placed in the social networks that exist in real life. These models can help with that! Networks can provide the structure to extract contextual awareness of information flow and influence. ML can tell us which of these pieces of information is most useful in understanding something. Sometimes, ML can cut right through the noise and get right to the signals that affect our lives.

With the model that we just built, one insight is that the book Les Miserables has different characters by type in different network structures. Revolutionaries are close to each other and tightly connected. Students...