What Is Machine Learning? A Beginner Guide with Examples
Machine learning means computers learn patterns from examples instead of following only hand-written rules.
Learning from examples
Show a program thousands of labeled emails and it learns what spam looks like.
Three common types
Most systems fall into a few categories.
- Supervised: learn from labeled data.
- Unsupervised: find groups in data.
- Reinforcement: learn by trial and reward.
Everyday examples
Spam filters, photo search and product recommendations all use it.
Limits
Models are only as good as their data and can fail on situations they have not seen.
- Biased data gives biased results.
- They can be fooled.
- They need monitoring.
Key takeaway: Machine learning finds patterns in data, so data quality decides how useful it is.
