What is Machine Learning?
Machine Learning, often abbreviated as ML, is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that
focuses on the development of computer algorithms that improve automatically through
experience and by the use of data. In simpler terms, machine learning enables computers to
learn from data and make decisions or predictions without being explicitly programmed to do
so.
Machine learning is all about creating and implementing algorithms that facilitate these
decisions and predictions. These algorithms are designed to improve their performance over
time, becoming more accurate and effective as they process more data.
In traditional programming, a computer follows a set of predefined instructions to perform a
task. However, in machine learning, the computer is given a set of examples (data) and a task
to perform, but it's up to the computer to figure out how to accomplish the task based on the
examples it's given.
For instance, if we want a computer to recognize images of cats, we don't provide it with
specific instructions on what a cat looks like. Instead, we give it thousands of images of cats
and let the machine learning algorithm figure out the common patterns and features that
define a cat. Over time, as the algorithm processes more images, it gets better at recognizing
cats, even when presented with images it has never seen before.
Arthur Samuel, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence and computer gaming, coined
the term “Machine Learning”. He defined machine learning as – a “Field of study that gives
computers the capability to learn without being explicitly programmed”. Machine
Learning(ML) can be explained as automating and improving the learning process of
computers based on their experiences without being actually programmed i.e. without any
human assistance.
The process starts with feeding good quality data and then training our machines(computers)
by building machine learning models using the data and different algorithms. The choice of
algorithms depends on what type of data we have and what kind of task we are trying to
automate..
Applications of Machine Learning:
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:
Ex: Facebook
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 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:
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.
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 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.
Need for machine learning:
Machine learning is important because it allows computers to learn from data and improve
their performance on specific tasks without being explicitly programmed. This ability to learn
from data and adapt to new situations makes machine learning particularly useful for tasks
that involve large amounts of data, complex decision-making, and dynamic environments.
Here are some specific areas where machine learning is being used:
Predictive modeling: Machine learning can be used to build predictive models that can help
businesses make better decisions. For example, machine learning can be used to predict
which customers are most likely to buy a particular product, or which patients are most likely
to develop a certain disease.
Natural language processing: Machine learning is used to build systems that can understand
and interpret human language. This is important for applications such as voice recognition,
chatbots, and language translation.
Computer vision: Machine learning is used to build systems that can recognize and interpret
images and videos. This is important for applications such as self-driving cars, surveillance
systems, and medical imaging.
Fraud detection: Machine learning can be used to detect fraudulent behavior in financial
transactions, online advertising, and other areas.
Recommendation systems: Machine learning can be used to build recommendation systems
that suggest products, services, or content to users based on their past behavior and
preferences.
Life cycle of machine learning:
Machine learning life cycle is a cyclic process to build an efficient machine learning project.
The main purpose of the life cycle is to find a solution to the problem or project.
Machine learning life cycle involves seven major steps, which are given below:
• Gathering Data
• Data preparation
• Data Wrangling
• Analyse Data
• Train the model
• Test the model
• Deployment
• The most important thing in the complete process is to understand the problem and to
know the purpose of the problem.
• Therefore, before starting the life cycle, we need to understand the problem because
the good result depends on the better understanding of the problem.
• In the complete life cycle process, to solve a problem, we create a machine learning
system called "model“
• this model is created by providing "training". But to train a model, we need data,
hence, life cycle starts by collecting data.
1. Gathering Data:
Data Gathering is the first step of the machine learning life cycle.
The goal of this step is to identify and obtain all data-related problems.
This step includes the below tasks:
Identify various data sources
Collect data
Integrate the data obtained from different sources
In this step we get meaningful set of data, also called as a dataset.
2. Data preparation:
Data preparation is a step where we put our data into a suitable place and prepare it to
use in our machine learning training.
In this step, first, we put all data together, and then randomize the ordering of data.
This step can be further divided into two processes:
Data exploration:
It is used to understand the nature of data that we have to work with. We need to understand
the characteristics, format, and quality of data.
A better understanding of data leads to an effective outcome. In this, we find Correlations,
general trends, and outliers.
Data pre-processing:
Now the next step is preprocessing of data for its analysis.
3. Data Wrangling:
Data wrangling is the process of cleaning and converting raw data into a usable
format.
It is one of the most important steps of the complete process. Cleaning of data is
required to address the quality issues.
It is not necessary that data we have collected is always of our use as some of the data may
not be useful. In real-world applications, collected data may have various issues, including:
Missing Values
Duplicate data
Invalid data
Noise
So, we use various filtering techniques to clean the data.
It is mandatory to detect and remove the above issues because it can negatively affect the
quality of the outcome.
4. Data Analysis:
Now the cleaned and prepared data is passed on to the analysis step. This step involves:
Selection of analytical techniques
Building models
Review the result
The aim of this step is to build a machine learning model to analyze the data using various
analytical techniques and review the outcome.
It starts with the determination of the type of the problems, where we select the machine
learning techniques such as Classification, Regression, Cluster analysis, Association, etc. then
build the model using prepared data, and evaluate the model.
Hence, in this step, we take the data and use machine learning algorithms to build the model.
5. Train Model:
Now the next step is to train the model, in this step we train our model to improve its
performance for better outcome of the problem.
We use datasets to train the model using various machine learning algorithms.
Training a model is required so that it can understand the various patterns, rules, and,
features.
6. Test Model:
Once our machine learning model has been trained on a given dataset, then we test the
model.
In this step, we check for the accuracy of our model by providing a test dataset to
it.
Testing the model determines the percentage accuracy of the model as per the
requirement of project or problem.
7. Deployment:
The last step of machine learning life cycle is deployment, where we deploy the
model in the real-world system.
If the above-prepared model is producing an accurate result as per our requirement
with acceptable speed, then we deploy the model in the real system.
But before deploying the project, we will check whether it is improving its
performance using available data or not.
The deployment phase is similar to making the final report for a project.