What is Machine Learning?
Whenever you hear the term “Machine Learning,”what do you think? Some may think of robots performing various tasks that seem like something straight out of a science fiction movie. Some may think of Google or Facebook collecting all their data and sending them “personalized” ads. While others may think of Netflix or Hulu recommending them their favorite shows. None of these are necessarily incorrect thoughts as all these various ideas use machine learning, but what is machine learning?
Definition
After doing a quick google search of the definition of machine learning, Oxford Languages defines machine learning as:
“the use and development of computer systems that are able to learn and adapt without following explicit instructions, by using algorithms and statistical models to analyze and draw inferences from patterns in data.”
In simple terms, machine learning is the use of computers to learn from data. Your computer essentially uses statistical modeling to learn the relationship between some elements used as predictors and some responses i.e. what you’re trying to predict. There are three major flavors of machine learning, supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning.
