Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are changing the landscape of how organizations function in the world. These fields have become the focus of businessmen and entrepreneurs of all fields. The amount of funding in AI startups has risen to 18.8B USD in the past year. What’s more interesting is that the largest category of AI investments is in machine learning that is a subfield of AI. Machine learning is the basic thing powering all AI applications.
From data analysis to make independent decisions based upon past experiences, Machine Learning is being used to help organizations make informed decisions but before any of that happens, the training of algorithms and associated software must be available, that is the reason for calling it Machine Learning. We’ll see an overview of machine learning in this article and the two methods used to train machine learning models.
Machine Learning (ML)
Machine learning contains algorithms and programs that allow computer systems to learn tasks that are performing in a specified way. Computers or machines learn a task using a sample/historical data of a process. the algorithm looks for features that a system takes into account and their importance in the output to predict the correct input. by doing a task, the algorithm finally figures out a way to predict the output with the least error.
Two methods of supervised learning and unsupervised learning, are there to train ML programs. Both methods train the software but have significant differences between them, which change the way both models function completely. Let’s have a look at the details and differences between the supervised learning vs unsupervised learning.
Supervised Learning
Supervised Learning is like teaching a toddler how to walk or so forth. The software will have a dataset as well as corresponding input and output pairs which can form a training model for the software. Linear Regression is an example of Supervised Learning and in this case, regression Involves the output is a real number or quantity, let’s say dollars or weights. Likewise, Classification models can be available if we want our output in different categories like ‘cancer’ or ‘no cancer’ etc.
If you are investing in a supervised learning algorithm i.e. creating an array of data sets that can correspond to various inputs/outputs, the end result will always have a probabilistic interpretation. The result of this could be the regularization of the algorithm to do-away with any form of overfitting within the neural network or otherwise.
So in hindsight, supervised learning follows a rather fixed pattern whereby the network plays with a certain amount of data followed by a feature vector containing many elements. Once the input part is available, an algorithm originates which then creates a data model that forms the basis for future learning.
The best applications of supervised learning are in Speech and object recognition, bioinformatics, and spam detection.
Unsupervised Learning
Unsupervised Learning consists of methods to train AI software without a training model. In the first scenario discussed above, we had input variables and some possible outputs. Yet in Unsupervised Learning, we only have a dataset and the software goes over it bit by bit, analyzing all the data points and then finding any suitable patterns which match the dataset. Consider you have a large database of entries from an Air Quality Monitoring system and you want to make sense of the data, which is not available yet, the software will go through every part and create a pattern from which you can deduce meaningful results.
When engaging with unsupervised learning problems, there exist two particular aspects that are available in groups like; clustering and association.
Clustering involves the process of formulating structures or patterns in a collection of uncategorized or unlabeled data. What this means is that these algorithms will process data in an attempt to configure any natural clusters within the data set.
Association, so, helps to establish associations amongst data objects within larger databases. Since this is an unsupervised technique, the possibilities are endless and thus help create many layers of relationships amongst variables from large databases.
Neural Networks work on the concept of Unsupervised Learning. Another example of Unsupervised Learning is anomaly detection.
Supervised Vs Unsupervised Learning – what’s better?
Supervised Machine learning is famous for its ability to collect data or even produce data outputs based on previous experiences due to the constant reinforcement it undertakes. This leads to the development of optimal criteria for performance through the usage of experienced data sets. So, it helps to solve a plethora of real-world computation problems with ease.
Unsupervised Machine learning so prominent for its ability to categorize unlabeled data and discover a wide range of unknown patterns within it. What this leads to is the ability to find features for categorization while also enabling any analysis or labeling to take place in real-time. Since neural networks handle this, it makes it easier to get unlabeled data from computers rather than trying to discover labeled which would need manual intervention.
In conclusion, we can not label each as “better” than the other since they both offer a unique set of features that can aid a wide number of mechanisms and processes. Since these two are different, data scientists have tried to incorporate limited features of both into a third type of learning known as semi-supervised, which is what we will look at next.
Semi-Supervised Learning
In semi-supervised learning, we apply a mixture of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to make sense of the dataset. This method is available when we have a dataset that has some points labeled whereas much of the dataset currently has no meaning. So, we will apply supervised learning on the labeled dataset and unsupervised learning on the unlabelled dataset. For example, you can apply Linear Regression on some parts and dedicate a neural network to understand the remaining part of the dataset.
Conclusion
With those 3 techniques in view, we can deploy AI software on any sort of datasets to extract meaningful results from them. The reason why organizations can boost their revenues by deploying this software is that they make meaningful decisions based upon supporting data from the past. So their future strategies base on the predictions through AI, help them boost their revenues.
Moreover, with the rise in AI usage and the growing need to create a lasting impact in the growing digital world, more organizations are choosing to use these learning methods. By working alongside dedicated data scientists, companies all across the globe regardless of their specific industries are enrolling in the idea of machine learning with the hopes of improving standards while also setting a structure for the future.
