Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that gives computers the ability to learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. It's a subset of AI that focuses on the development of algorithms that can learn from and make predictions or decisions based on data.

Key Concepts

  • Supervised Learning: This is a type of machine learning where the algorithm learns from a labeled dataset. The goal is to learn a mapping from input to output variables.
  • Unsupervised Learning: In this type, the algorithm is given data without explicit instructions on what to do with it. The goal is to find structure in the data.
  • Reinforcement Learning: This is a type of learning where an agent learns to make decisions by performing actions and receiving rewards or penalties.

Applications

Machine learning is used in various fields such as:

  • Healthcare: Predicting patient outcomes, diagnosing diseases.
  • Finance: Credit scoring, algorithmic trading.
  • Retail: Personalized recommendations, demand forecasting.

Resources

For further reading, check out our Introduction to Machine Learning.

Machine Learning Diagram