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Machine learning

Machine learning (ML) is the scientific study of algorithms and statistical models that computer systems use in order to perform a specific task effectively without using explicit instructions, relying on patterns and inference instead. It is seen as a subset of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as 'training data', in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task.:2 Machine learning algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as email filtering, and computer vision, where it is infeasible to develop an algorithm of specific instructions for performing the task. Machine learning is closely related to computational statistics, which focuses on making predictions using computers. The study of mathematical optimization delivers methods, theory and application domains to the field of machine learning. Data mining is a field of study within machine learning, and focuses on exploratory data analysis through unsupervised learning. In its application across business problems, machine learning is also referred to as predictive analytics. Machine learning (ML) is the scientific study of algorithms and statistical models that computer systems use in order to perform a specific task effectively without using explicit instructions, relying on patterns and inference instead. It is seen as a subset of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as 'training data', in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task.:2 Machine learning algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as email filtering, and computer vision, where it is infeasible to develop an algorithm of specific instructions for performing the task. Machine learning is closely related to computational statistics, which focuses on making predictions using computers. The study of mathematical optimization delivers methods, theory and application domains to the field of machine learning. Data mining is a field of study within machine learning, and focuses on exploratory data analysis through unsupervised learning. In its application across business problems, machine learning is also referred to as predictive analytics. The name machine learning was coined in 1959 by Arthur Samuel. Tom M. Mitchell provided a widely quoted, more formal definition of the algorithms studied in the machine learning field: 'A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.' This definition of the tasks in which machine learning is concerned offers a fundamentally operational definition rather than defining the field in cognitive terms. This follows Alan Turing's proposal in his paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence', in which the question 'Can machines think?' is replaced with the question 'Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?'. In Turing's proposal the various characteristics that could be possessed by a thinking machine and the various implications in constructing one are exposed. Machine learning tasks are classified into several broad categories. In supervised learning, the algorithm builds a mathematical model from a set of data that contains both the inputs and the desired outputs. For example, if the task were determining whether an image contained a certain object, the training data for a supervised learning algorithm would include images with and without that object (the input), and each image would have a label (the output) designating whether it contained the object. In special cases, the input may be only partially available, or restricted to special feedback. Semi-supervised learning algorithms develop mathematical models from incomplete training data, where a portion of the sample input doesn't have labels. Classification algorithms and regression algorithms are types of supervised learning. Classification algorithms are used when the outputs are restricted to a limited set of values. For a classification algorithm that filters emails, the input would be an incoming email, and the output would be the name of the folder in which to file the email. For an algorithm that identifies spam emails, the output would be the prediction of either 'spam' or 'not spam', represented by the Boolean values true and false. Regression algorithms are named for their continuous outputs, meaning they may have any value within a range. Examples of a continuous value are the temperature, length, or price of an object. In unsupervised learning, the algorithm builds a mathematical model from a set of data which contains only inputs and no desired output labels. Unsupervised learning algorithms are used to find structure in the data, like grouping or clustering of data points. Unsupervised learning can discover patterns in the data, and can group the inputs into categories, as in feature learning. Dimensionality reduction is the process of reducing the number of 'features', or inputs, in a set of data. Active learning algorithms access the desired outputs (training labels) for a limited set of inputs based on a budget, and optimize the choice of inputs for which it will acquire training labels. When used interactively, these can be presented to a human user for labeling. Reinforcement learning algorithms are given feedback in the form of positive or negative reinforcement in a dynamic environment, and are used in autonomous vehicles or in learning to play a game against a human opponent.:3 Other specialized algorithms in machine learning include topic modeling, where the computer program is given a set of natural language documents and finds other documents that cover similar topics. Machine learning algorithms can be used to find the unobservable probability density function in density estimation problems. Meta learning algorithms learn their own inductive bias based on previous experience. In developmental robotics, robot learning algorithms generate their own sequences of learning experiences, also known as a curriculum, to cumulatively acquire new skills through self-guided exploration and social interaction with humans. These robots use guidance mechanisms such as active learning, maturation, motor synergies, and imitation. Arthur Samuel, an American pioneer in the field of computer gaming and artificial intelligence, coined the term 'Machine Learning' in 1959 while at IBM. As a scientific endeavor, machine learning grew out of the quest for artificial intelligence. Already in the early days of AI as an academic discipline, some researchers were interested in having machines learn from data. They attempted to approach the problem with various symbolic methods, as well as what were then termed 'neural networks'; these were mostly perceptrons and other models that were later found to be reinventions of the generalized linear models of statistics. Probabilistic reasoning was also employed, especially in automated medical diagnosis.:488 However, an increasing emphasis on the logical, knowledge-based approach caused a rift between AI and machine learning. Probabilistic systems were plagued by theoretical and practical problems of data acquisition and representation.:488 By 1980, expert systems had come to dominate AI, and statistics was out of favor. Work on symbolic/knowledge-based learning did continue within AI, leading to inductive logic programming, but the more statistical line of research was now outside the field of AI proper, in pattern recognition and information retrieval.:708–710; 755 Neural networks research had been abandoned by AI and computer science around the same time. This line, too, was continued outside the AI/CS field, as 'connectionism', by researchers from other disciplines including Hopfield, Rumelhart and Hinton. Their main success came in the mid-1980s with the reinvention of backpropagation.:25

[ "Computer science", "Distribution learning theory", "Sequential Pattern Mining", "Time series", "Commonsense reasoning", "Model-based reasoning" ]
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