Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms - Second Edition

6

Clustering and Unsupervised Models

In this chapter, we are going to introduce some fundamental clustering algorithms and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. The field of unsupervised learning, as well as any other machine learning approach, must always be based on the concept of Occam's razor. Simplicity must always be preferred, so long as the performance of the model meets your requirements.

However, in this case, the ground truth can be unknown. When a clustering algorithm is adopted as an exploratory tool, we can only assume that the dataset represents a precise data-generating process. If this assumption is correct, the best strategy is to determine the number of clusters to maximize the internal cohesion (denseness) and the external ...