In fact, we have a whole zoo of machine learning algorithms that have experienced varying popularity over time. We can roughly categorize them into four main approaches such as logic-based learning, statistical learning, artificial neural networks, and genetic algorithms.
The logic-based systems were the first to be dominant. They used basic rules specified by human experts and, with these rules, systems tried to reason using formal logic, background knowledge, and hypotheses. In the mid-1980s, artificial neural networks (ANNs) came to the foreground, to be then pushed aside by statistical learning systems in the 1990s. ANNs imitate animal brains and consist of interconnected ...