Chapter 1

Introduction to Machine Learning

Undoubtedly, Machine Learning is the most in-demand technology in
today’s market. Its applications range from self-driving cars to predicting
deadly diseases such as cancer. The high demand for Machine Learning
skills is the motivation behind this Course. In this Course, you will
understand all the basic concepts of Machine Learning and its applications
in different problem areas of the society.

1.1 Need for Machine Learning

Ever since the technical revolution, we’ve been generating an
immeasurable amount of data. As per research, we generate around 2.5
quintillion bytes of data every single day! It is estimated that by 2020,
1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth.
With the availability of so much data, it is finally possible to build
predictive models that can study and analyze complex data to find useful
insights and deliver more accurate results. Top Tier companies such as
Netflix and Amazon build such Machine Learning models by using tons of
data in order to identify profitable opportunities and avoid unwanted risks.

Here’s a list of reasons why Machine Learning is so important:

Source:[Link]

Increase in Data Generation: Due to excessive production of data, we

need a method that can be used to structure, analyze and draw useful
insights from data. This is where Machine Learning comes in. It uses data
to solve problems and find solutions to the most complex tasks faced by
organizations.

Improve Decision Making: By making use of various algorithms, Machine

Learning can be used to make better business decisions. For example,
Chapter 1: Introduction to Machine Learning

Machine Learning is used to forecast sales, predict downfalls in the stock

market, identify risks and anomalies, etc.

Uncover patterns & trends in data: Finding hidden patterns and

extracting key insights from data is the most essential part of Machine
Learning. By building predictive models and using statistical techniques,
Machine Learning allows you to dig beneath the surface and explore the
data at a minute scale. Understanding data and extracting patterns
manually will take days, whereas Machine Learning algorithms can
perform such computations in less than a second.

Solve complex problems: From detecting the genes linked to the deadly
ALS disease to building self-driving cars, Machine Learning can be used to
solve the most complex problems.
1.2 Machine Learning Applications
Machine learning is a buzzword for today's technology, and it is growing
very rapidly day by day. We are using machine learning in our daily life
even without knowing it such as Google Maps, Google assistant, Alexa, etc.
Below are some most trending real-world applications of Machine
Learning:

Source: [Link]

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1. Image Recognition:
Image recognition is one of the most common applications of machine
learning. It is used to identify objects, persons, places, digital images, etc.
The popular use case of image recognition and face detection is, Automatic
friend tagging suggestion in Facebook. Facebook provides us a feature of
auto friend tagging suggestion. Whenever we upload a photo with our
Facebook friends, then we automatically get a tagging suggestion with
name, and the technology behind this is machine learning's face detection
and recognition algorithm. It is based on the Facebook project named
"Deep Face," which is responsible for face recognition and person
identification in the picture.
2. Speech Recognition
While using Google, we get an option of "Search by voice," it comes under
speech recognition, and it's a popular application of machine learning.
Speech recognition is a process of converting voice instructions into text,
and it is also known as "Speech to text", or "Computer speech recognition."
At present, machine learning algorithms are widely used by various
applications of speech recognition. Google assistant, Siri, Cortana, and
Alexa are using speech recognition technology to follow the voice
instructions.
3. Traffic prediction
If we want to visit a new place, we take help of Google Maps, which shows
us the correct path with the shortest route and predicts the traffic
conditions. It predicts the traffic conditions such as whether traffic is
cleared, slow-moving, or heavily congested with the help of two ways:
 Real Time location of the vehicle form Google Map app and sensors
 Average time has taken on past days at the same time.
Everyone who is using Google Map is helping this app to make it better. It
takes information from the user and sends back to its database to improve
the performance.
4. Product recommendations
Machine learning is widely used by various e-commerce and entertainment
companies such as Amazon, Netflix, etc., for product recommendation to
the user. Whenever we search for some product on Amazon, then we
started getting an advertisement for the same product while internet
surfing on the same browser and this is because of machine learning.
Google understands the user interest using various machine learning
algorithms and suggests the product as per customer interest.
As similar, when we use Netflix, we find some recommendations for
entertainment series, movies, etc., and this is also done with the help of
machine learning.
5. Self-driving cars

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One of the most exciting applications of machine learning is self-driving

cars. Machine learning plays a significant role in self-driving cars. Tesla, the
most popular car manufacturing company is working on self-driving car. It
is using unsupervised learning method to train the car models to detect
people and objects while driving.
6. Email Spam and Malware Filtering
Whenever we receive a new email, it is filtered automatically as important,
normal, and spam. We always receive an important mail in our inbox with
the important symbol and spam emails in our spam box, and the technology
behind this is Machine learning. Below are some spam filters used by
Gmail:
 Content Filter
 Header filter
 General blacklists filter
 Rules-based filters
 Permission filters
Some machine learning algorithms such as Multi-Layer Perceptron,
Decision tree, and Naïve Bayes classifier are used for email spam filtering
and malware detection.
7. Virtual Personal Assistant
We have various virtual personal assistants such as Google assistant, Alexa,
Cortana, Siri. As the name suggests, they help us in finding the information
using our voice instruction. These assistants can help us in various ways
just by our voice instructions such as Play music, call someone, open an
email, Scheduling an appointment, etc. These virtual assistants use
machine learning algorithms as an important part. These assistant record
our voice instructions, send it over the server on a cloud, and decode it
using ML algorithms and act accordingly.
8. Online Fraud Detection
Machine learning is making our online transaction safe and secure by
detecting fraud transaction. Whenever we perform some online
transaction, there may be various ways that a fraudulent transaction can
take place such as fake accounts, fake ids, and steal money in the middle of
a transaction. So to detect this, Feed Forward Neural network helps us by
checking whether it is a genuine transaction or a fraud transaction.
For each genuine transaction, the output is converted into some hash
values, and these values become the input for the next round. For each
genuine transaction, there is a specific pattern which gets change for the
fraud transaction hence, it detects it and makes our online transactions
more secure.
9. Stock Market trading
Machine learning is widely used in stock market trading. In the stock
market, there is always a risk of up and downs in shares, so for this machine

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learning's long short term memory neural network is used for the
prediction of stock market trends.
10. Medical Diagnosis
In medical science, machine learning is used for diseases diagnoses. With
this, medical technology is growing very fast and able to build 3D models
that can predict the exact position of lesions in the brain. It helps in finding
brain tumors and other brain-related diseases easily.
11. Automatic Language Translation
Nowadays, if we visit a new place and we are not aware of the language
then it is not a problem at all, as for this also machine learning helps us by
converting the text into our known languages. Google's GNMT (Google
Neural Machine Translation) provide this feature, which is a Neural
Machine Learning that translates the text into our familiar language, and it
called as automatic translation.
The technology behind the automatic translation is a sequence to
sequence learning algorithm, which is used with image recognition and
translates the text from one language to another language.
1.3 Traditional Programming Vs Machine Learning
Traditional Programming refers to any manually created program that
uses input data and runs on a computer to produce the output. In Machine
Learning, the input data and output are fed to an algorithm to create a
program.

1.4 Machine Learning Definitions

The term Machine Learning was first coined by Arthur Samuel in the year
1959. According to Samuel - "Machine Learning is the field of study that
gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed."

If you browse through the net about ‘what is Machine Learning’, you’ll get
at least 100 different definitions. However, the very first formal definition
was given by Tom M. Mitchell (1997) - “A computer program is said to learn
from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance
measure P if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with
experience E.”

So, we can say that Machine Learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence

(AI) which provides machines the ability to lean automatically & improve
from experience without being explicitly programmed.

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A Machine Learning process begins by feeding the machine lots of data, by

using this data the machine is trained to detect hidden insights and trends.
These insights are then used to build a Machine Learning Model by using
an algorithm in order to solve a problem.

1.5 AI vs ML vs Deep Learning

Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence is the broader concept of
machines being able to carry out tasks in a smarter way. It covers
anything which enables the computers to behave like humans.
Machine Learning: Machine Learning is a subset of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) which provides machines the ability to lean
automatically & improve from experience without being explicitly
programmed.
Deep Learning: Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning where
similar Machine Learning Algorithms are used to train Deep Neural
Networks so as to achieve better accuracy in those cases where former
was not performing up to the mark.
1.6 Machine Learning Process
The Machine Learning process involves building a Predictive model that
can be used to find a solution for a Problem statement.

To understand the Machine Learning process let’s assume that you

have been given a problem that needs to be solved by using Machine

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Learning. Suppose, the problem is to predict the occurrence of rain in your

local area by using Machine Learning. The below steps are followed in a
Machine Learning process:

Step 1: Define the objective of the Problem Statement

At this step, we must understand what exactly needs to be predicted. In our
case, the objective is to predict the possibility of rain by studying weather
conditions. At this stage, it is also essential to take mental notes on what
kind of data can be used to solve this problem or the type of approach you
must follow to get to the solution.

Step 2: Data Gathering

At this stage, you must be asking questions such as,
 What kind of data is needed to solve this problem?
 Is the data available?
 How can I get the data?
Once you know the types of data that is required, you must understand how
you can derive this data. Data collection can be done manually or by web
scraping. Coming back to the problem at hand, the data needed for weather
forecasting includes measures such as humidity level, temperature,
pressure, locality, whether or not you live in a hill station, etc. Such data
must be collected and stored for analysis.

Step 3: Data Preparation

The data you collected is almost never in the right format. You will
encounter a lot of inconsistencies in the data set such as missing values,
redundant variables, duplicate values, etc. Removing such inconsistencies
is very essential because they might lead to wrongful computations and
predictions. Therefore, at this stage, you scan the data set for any
inconsistencies and you fix them then and there.

Step 4: Exploratory Data Analysis

This stage is all about diving deep into data and finding all the hidden data
mysteries. EDA or Exploratory Data Analysis is the brainstorming stage of
Machine Learning. Data Exploration involves understanding the patterns
and trends in the data. At this stage, all the useful insights are drawn and
correlations between the variables are understood.
For example, in the case of predicting rainfall, we know that there is a
strong possibility of rain if the temperature has fallen low. Such
correlations must be understood and mapped at this stage.

Step 5: Building a Machine Learning Model

All the insights and patterns derived during Data Exploration are used to
build the Machine Learning Model. This stage always begins by splitting the

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data set into two parts, training data, and testing data. The training data
will be used to build and analyze the model. The logic of the model is based
on the Machine Learning Algorithm that is being implemented.

In the case of predicting rainfall, since the output will be in the form of True
(if it will rain tomorrow) or False (no rain tomorrow), we can use a
Classification Algorithm such as Logistic Regression. Choosing the right
algorithm depends on the type of problem you’re trying to solve, the data
set and the level of complexity of the problem.

Step 6: Model Evaluation & Optimization

After building a model by using the training data set, it is finally time to put
the model to a test. The testing data set is used to check the efficiency of the
model and how accurately it can predict the outcome. Once the accuracy is
calculated, any further improvements in the model can be implemented at
this stage. Methods like parameter tuning and cross-validation can be used
to improve the performance of the model.
Step 7: Predictions
Once the model is evaluated and improved, it is finally used to make
predictions. The final output can be a Categorical variable (eg. True or
False) or it can be a Continuous Quantity (eg. the predicted value of a stock).
In the given problem, for predicting the occurrence of rainfall, the output
will be a categorical variable.
1.7 Machine Learning Types
A machine can learn to solve a problem by following any one of the
following three approaches. These are the ways in which a machine can
learn:
1. Supervised Learning
2. Unsupervised Learning
3. Reinforcement Learning
Supervised Learning
"Supervised learning is a technique in which we teach or train the machine
using data which is well labeled."
To understand Supervised Learning let’s consider an analogy. As kids we
all needed guidance to solve math problems. Our teachers helped us
understand what addition is and how it is done. Similarly, you can think of
supervised learning as a type of Machine Learning that involves a guide.
The labeled data set is the teacher that will train you to understand
patterns in the data. The labeled data set is nothing but the training data
set.

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Consider the above figure. Here we’re feeding the machine images of Tom
and Jerry and the goal is for the machine to identify and classify the images
into two groups (Tom images and Jerry images). The training data set that
is fed to the model is labeled, as in, we’re telling the machine, ‘this is how
Tom looks and this is Jerry’. By doing so you’re training the machine by
using labeled data. In Supervised Learning, there is a well-defined training
phase done with the help of labeled data.

There are two kinds of supervise learning:

 Classification
 Regression

Example: Classification Vs Regression

Difference Between Classification and Regression

Unsupervised Learning
"Unsupervised learning involves training by using unlabeled data and
allowing the model to act on that information without guidance."

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Think of unsupervised learning as a smart kid that learns without any

guidance. In this type of Machine Learning, the model is not fed with
labeled data, as in the model has no clue that ‘this image is Tom and this is
Jerry’, it figures out patterns and the differences between Tom and Jerry on
its own by taking in tons of data.

For example, it identifies prominent features of Tom such as pointy ears,

bigger size, etc, to understand that this image is of type 1. Similarly, it finds
such features in Jerry and knows that this image is of type 2. Therefore, it
classifies the images into two different classes without knowing who Tom
is or Jerry is.

Reinforcement Learning
"Reinforcement Learning is a part of Machine learning where an agent is
put in an environment and he learns to behave in this environment by
performing certain actions and observing the rewards which it gets from
those actions."

Reinforcement Learning is mainly used in advanced Machine Learning

areas such as self-driving cars, AplhaGo, etc.

1.8 Difference Between Types of Learning

Summary

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Tom Mitchell, “Machine Learning”, McGraw Hill, First Edition 1997

 Ethem Alpaydın, "Introduction to Machine Learning", The MIT Press
Cambridge, Second Edition, 2020
 NPTEL Course Video Lecture on "Introduction to Machine Learning" - By
Prof. Sudeshna Sarkar, IIT Kharagpur
 Course Video Lectures on "Machine Learning" - By Andrew Ng, Stanford
University
 YouTube Video Lectures on "Introduction to Machine Learning" - By
Edureka