R in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Chapter 22. Machine Learning

This chapter covers machine learning algorithms that were not included in Chapter 20. In 20 and 21, we showed techniques for predicting values when you were interested in a specific value. This chapter shows methods for finding patterns in data when you aren’t quite sure what you’re looking for.

The techniques in this chapter are often called data mining. Data mining means something very simple: looking for patterns in data. Unfortunately, the term “data mining” now has negative connotations, much like the term “hacking” has negative connotations. When properly used, data mining algorithms can be a good technique when you are looking for patterns in large, unstructured data sources. R provides implementations of several popular data mining algorithms.