OK, I would counter-propose (as I tend to work in a dynamic world):
Bayesian inference is an efficient way to track your estimates and uncertainties as you accumulate data.
Often people avoid a fully Bayes treatment of a problem in order to make the problem more efficient. A full Bayes treatment can be much less efficient than a more "shortcut" approach, such as Empirical Bayes.
Considering these priors, Bayesian inference quantitates your ignorance.
Perhaps they meant "data efficient" as opposed to "computationally efficient".
Quantified error bounds can be added to most machine learning algorithms using Conformal Prediction and similar ideas, see [1]-[2]
[1] - https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/category/tools/machine-le...
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Learning-Random-World-Vla...
Sometimes you are very certain prior to updating your beliefs (in the form of a posterior), which can lead to very sharp predictions from (and possibly in spite of) your data.
Re:How Bayesian Inference Works (2016)
by digitalzombie on Saturday May 27, 2017 @10:08PM
(#14432823)
If your data have noises/randomness, it most likely does, and you use your statistic to reduce the variance of the noises then it would be sharper would it not?
Quite so. There is a difference between creating uncertainty versus revealing uncertainty.
Re:How Bayesian Inference Works (2016)
by bernardlunn on Saturday May 27, 2017 @11:09PM
(#14432936)
Or Bayesian inference trades certainty for speed ie how we work in real life.
Sure if having a sharp prediction means ignoring uncertainty.
That's a very strong statement. There's domains where machine learning tends to have better predictive performance than (Bayesian) statistics, but the converse is true in many other domains.
I would summarize it as Bayesian methods work best in areas where there's often not enough data, there exists significant expert knowledge, and you can properly specify a model. And yes, they do quantify uncertainty.
Funny, if I had to summarize it in one sentence I'd describe it in the opposite way: Bayesian inference is a way of making less sharp predictions from your data, with quantified uncertainty.