Python Data Science Handbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 37. What Is Machine Learning?

Before we take a look at the details of several machine learning methods, let’s start by looking at what machine learning is, and what it isn’t. Machine learning is often categorized as a subfield of artificial intelligence, but I find that categorization can be misleading. The study of machine learning certainly arose from research in this context, but in the data science application of machine learning methods, it’s more helpful to think of machine learning as a means of building models of data.

In this context, “learning” enters the fray when we give these models tunable parameters that can be adapted to observed data; in this way the program can be considered to be “learning” from the data. Once these models have been fit to previously seen data, they can be used to predict and understand aspects of newly observed data. I’ll leave to the reader the more philosophical digression regarding the extent to which this type of mathematical, model-based “learning” is similar to the “learning” exhibited by the human brain.

Understanding the problem setting in machine learning is essential to using these tools effectively, and so we will start with some broad categorizations of the types of approaches we’ll discuss here.

Note

All of the figures in this chapter are generated based on actual machine learning computations; the code behind them can be found in the online appendix.

Categories of Machine Learning

Machine learning can be categorized ...