Introducing Machine Learning

Chapter 3. Mapping Problems and Algorithms

When I consider what people generally want in calculating, I found that it always is a number.

—Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-KhwārizmīPersian mathematician of eighth century whose name originated the word algorithm

More often than not, the user experience produced by machine learning looks like magic to users. At the end of the day, though, machine learning is only a new flavor of software—a new specialty much like web or database development—and a flavor of software that today is a real breakthrough.

A breakthrough technology is any technology that enables people to do things that weren’t possible before. Behind the apparent magic of final effects, however, there is a series of cumbersome tasks and, more than ...