Chapter 1. Introduction to machine learning
This chapter covers
- What machine learning is
- Supervised vs. unsupervised machine learning
- Classification, regression, dimension reduction, and clustering
- Why we’re using R
- Which datasets we will use
You interact with machine learning on a daily basis whether you recognize it or not. The advertisements you see online are of products you’re more likely to buy based on the things you’ve previously bought or looked at. Faces in the photos you upload to social media platforms are automatically identified and tagged. Your car’s GPS predicts which routes will be busiest at certain times of day and replots your route to minimize journey length. Your email client progressively learns which emails you want and which ones you consider spam, to make your inbox less cluttered; and your home personal assistant recognizes your voice and responds to your requests. From small improvements to our daily lives such as these, to big, society-changing ideas such as self-driving cars, robotic surgery, and automated scanning for other Earth-like planets, machine learning has become an increasingly important part of modern life.