⚠️ Deprecation of SklearnQueryClassifier

[anakin87]

Starting from version 1.19, SklearnQueryClassifier is being deprecated and will be removed from Haystack as of version 1.21.

How to use SklearnQueryClassifier?

If you're currently using SklearnQueryClassifier in a version older than 1.19, you don't need to make any changes and can continue to use them as before. Keep in mind that you will get a DeprecationWarning when you want to use these components starting from version 1.19. To smoothly upgrade to upcoming Haystack versions, we recommend switching to the more powerful TransformersQueryClassifier.

Why are we doing this?

SklearnQueryClassifier allows you to direct your queries to suitable branch of your pipeline. It uses a lightweight model built in sklearn, which requires fewer resources but offers slightly lower accuracy than TransformersQueryClassifier. However, one drawback is that the sklearn model used in the SklearnQueryClassifier needs to be retrained and manually deployed to AWS with each new version of sklearn. This makes it more challenging to maintain and keep the model up to date. Additionally, we have noticed a decline in the adoption of SklearnQueryClassifier among users who require a QueryClassifier. Taking all these factors into account, we have decided to deprecate the SklearnQueryClassifier in Haystack.

Let us know 🙌

If you have any questions or comments regarding this deprecation, feel free to comment on this post or send a message to the #haystack channel on Discord.