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Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by currymj on Sunday June 03, 2018 @06:56PM (#17222903)
Stan is probably the most mature, stable PPL, and it's an extremely popular tool, although it isn't really deep-learning-adjacent so gets much less hype.

It's generally used more for modeling and prediction than for creating "products", if that makes sense. More popular among people with statistics or social science backgrounds than among programmers and computer scientists.

If you dig around Stan-related websites you can see various companies and institutions that use it. One I found quite quickly was Metrum Research Group, which does consulting work for the pharmaceutical industry.

https://metrumrg.com/

Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by marmaduke on Monday June 04, 2018 @01:44AM (#17224977)
Generable is a Stan based startup which employs some of the core Stan devs

http://www.generable.com

Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by kgwgk on Monday June 04, 2018 @05:30AM (#17226026)
Some? There is only one (out of 31) listed at http://mc-stan.org/about/team/
Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by boltzmannbrain on Monday June 04, 2018 @10:52AM (#17228274)
Do you know of any details on how/why probabilistic programming is used over traditional methods? And why Stan? My assumption is b/c it's a legacy framework.
Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by currymj on Monday June 04, 2018 @12:22PM (#17229424)
It's definitely not a legacy framework, it's very actively developed and improved.

A lot of very useful statistical models can't benefit from the GPU, and for them I think Stan is the better tool. There's a reason it's basically the default choice for people who want to use probabilistic programming for Bayesian statistics.

It's probably not the best tool for AI/ML type models. But for statisticians who want to use Bayesian methods it's close to perfect.

Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by boltzmannbrain on Monday June 04, 2018 @04:50PM (#17232307)
Thanks that's good to know.

Haha I knew "legacy" would ruffle some feathers, by which I mean Stan was pretty much the first application-ready PPS on the block -- robust toolbox of methods, actively developed/supported.

The last slide of this presentation on SMC inference in PPLs is a nice view of the PPS landscape (not to mention the whole deck is a great intro by Lawrence Murray): http://www.it.uu.se/research/systems_and_control/education/2...

Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by currymj on Monday June 04, 2018 @06:27PM (#17233211)
Yeah, I see what you're getting at now. And that is an excellent diagram.

I've never actually used BUGS or JAGS for anything but I would consider at least BUGS to truly be legacy software. To me the word "legacy" means you shouldn't pick it for a new project.

Re:Ask HN: What companies are using probabilistic programming? by xitrium on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @12:20AM (#17234966)
GPU and MPI support in Stan coming hopefully this summer!