Chapter 1
Tools and Data for Machine Learning Projects
IN THIS CHAPTER
Types of machine learning
Working with the UCI Machine Learning repository
Understanding the iris dataset
Introducing the rattle package
Using rattle with the iris dataset
Machine learning (ML) is the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to statistics and statistical analysis. ML techniques automate the search for patterns in data. Sometimes, the objective is to figure out a rule for classifying things based on their characteristics: For example, does a particular x-ray mean the x-rayed person is sick or well? Is a particular flower a member of one species or another?
In other efforts, the objective is prediction: Given a sequence of stock market data, will the market go up or down? Given the past three days of weather data, will it rain tomorrow or not?
Think of the characteristics of the x-rays or flowers (or the stock market or weather) as inputs. Think of the targets (sick or well, rain or shine) ...
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