What Is Machine Learning?
Learn the essential concepts of machine learning, including the definition, types of algorithms, and the main categories of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Understand how data and labels impact learning and why supervised learning is widely used in data science.
Definition of machine learning
While there are many definitions of machine learning, this course uses the following: “The field of study that gives computers the capability to learn without being explicitly programmed.”
This definition was written by Arthur Samuel, an early pioneer in artificial intelligence who is credited with coining the term “machine learning” in 1959.
Data scientists use machine learning algorithms developed by others to allow the computer to learn from data.
What is an algorithm?
An algorithm is a well-defined procedure or formula that takes input and produces output. That’s a bit abstract, so consider the ...