In this chapter
- what is machine learning
- is machine learning hard (spoiler: no)
- what do we learn in this book
- what is artificial intelligence, and how does it differ from machine learning
- how do humans think, and how can we inject those ideas into a machine
- some basic machine learning examples in real life
Welcome to this book! I’m super happy to be joining you in this journey through understanding machine learning. At a high level, machine learning is a process in which the computer solves problems and makes decisions in much the same way as humans.
In this book, I want to bring one message to you: machine learning is easy! You do not need to have a heavy math and programming background to understand it. You do need some basic mathematics, but the main ingredients are common sense, a good visual intuition, and a desire to learn and apply these methods to anything that you are passionate about and where you want to make an improvement in the world. I’ve had an absolute blast writing this book, because I love growing my understanding of this topic, and I hope you have a blast reading it and diving deep into machine learning!