# Capabilities for Better ML Engineering

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06409 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.06409/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [WILDS: A Benchmark of in-the-Wild Distribution Shifts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07421/) (2020)
- [Beyond Accuracy: Behavioral Testing of NLP models with CheckList](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.04118/) (2020)
- [Right for the Wrong Reasons: Diagnosing Syntactic Heuristics in Natural Language Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.01007/) (2019)
- [Recognition in Terra Incognita](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04975/) (2018)
- [Underspecification Presents Challenges for Credibility in Modern Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03395/) (2020)
- [Learning the Difference that Makes a Difference with Counterfactually-Augmented Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12434/) (2019)
- [Failing Loudly: An Empirical Study of Methods for Detecting Dataset Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.11953/) (2018)
- [Polyjuice: Generating Counterfactuals for Explaining, Evaluating, and Improving Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00288/) (2021)
- [Stress Test Evaluation for Natural Language Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00692/) (2018)
- [Predictive Biases in Natural Language Processing Models: A Conceptual Framework and Overview](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11078/) (2019)
- [Robustness Gym: Unifying the NLP Evaluation Landscape](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.04840/) (2021)
- [On Adversarial Examples for Character-Level Neural Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.09030/) (2018)
- [NL-Augmenter: A Framework for Task-Sensitive Natural Language Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02721/) (2021)
- [Collaboration Challenges in Building ML-Enabled Systems: Communication, Documentation, Engineering, and Process](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.10234/) (2021)
- [Who Needs MLOps: What Data Scientists Seek to Accomplish and How Can MLOps Help?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.08942/) (2021)
- [Discovering and Validating AI Errors With Crowdsourced Failure Reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.11690/) (2021)
- [Sentiment analysis is not solved! Assessing and probing sentiment classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05887/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Beyond Testers' Biases: Guiding Model Testing with Knowledge Bases using LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09668/) (2023)
- [Challenges and Opportunities of Using Transformer-Based Multi-Task Learning in NLP Through ML Lifecycle: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08234/) (2023)
- [Using Quality Attribute Scenarios for ML Model Test Case Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08575/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In spite of machine learning's rapid growth, its engineering support is scattered in many forms, and tends to favor certain engineering stages, stakeholders, and evaluation preferences. We envision a capability-based framework, which uses fine-grained specifications for ML model behaviors to unite existing efforts towards better ML engineering. We use concrete scenarios (model design, debugging, and maintenance) to articulate capabilities' broad applications across various different dimensions, and their impact on building safer, more generalizable and more trustworthy models that reflect human needs. Through preliminary experiments, we show capabilities' potential for reflecting model generalizability, which can provide guidance for ML engineering process. We discuss challenges and opportunities for capabilities' integration into ML engineering.