INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING?

In the real world, we are surrounded by humans who can learn everything from their experiences with
their learning capability, and we have computers or machines which work on our instructions. But can a
machine also learn from experiences or past data like a human does? So here comes the role of Machine
Learning.

Machine Learning is said as a subset of artificial intelligence that is mainly concerned with the development
of algorithms which allow a computer to learn from the data and past experiences on their own. The term
machine learning was first introduced by Arthur Samuel in 1959. We can define it in a summarized way as:
Machine learning enables a machine to automatically learn from data, improve performance from
experiences, and predict things without being explicitly programmed.
With the help of sample historical data, which is known as training data, machine learning algorithms build
a mathematical model that helps in making predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed.
Machine learning brings computer science and statistics together for creating predictive models. Machine
learning constructs or uses the algorithms that learn from historical data. The more we will provide the
information, the higher will be the performance.
A machine has the ability to learn if it can improve its performance by gaining more data.

How does Machine Learning work?

A Machine Learning system learns from historical data, builds the prediction models, and whenever it
receives new data, predicts the output for it. The accuracy of predicted output depends upon the amount
of data, as the huge amount of data helps to build a better model which predicts the output more
accurately.
Suppose we have a complex problem, where we need to perform some predictions, so instead of writing a
code for it, we just need to feed the data to generic algorithms, and with the help of these algorithms,
machine builds the logic as per the data and predict the output. Machine learning has changed our way of
thinking about the problem. The below block diagram explains the working of Machine Learning algorithm:
Features of Machine Learning:
o Machine learning uses data to detect various patterns in a given dataset.
o It can learn from past data and improve automatically.
o It is a data-driven technology.
o Machine learning is much similar to data mining as it also deals with the huge amount of the data.

Need for Machine Learning

The need for machine learning is increasing day by day. The reason behind the need for machine learning is
that it is capable of doing tasks that are too complex for a person to implement directly. As a human, we
have some limitations as we cannot access the huge amount of data manually, so for this, we need some
computer systems and here comes the machine learning to make things easy for us.
We can train machine learning algorithms by providing them the huge amount of data and let them
explore the data, construct the models, and predict the required output automatically. The performance of
the machine learning algorithm depends on the amount of data, and it can be determined by the cost
function. With the help of machine learning, we can save both time and money.
The importance of machine learning can be easily understood by its use cases. Currently, machine learning
is used in self-driving cars, cyber fraud detection, face recognition, and friend suggestion by Facebook,
etc. Various top companies such as Netflix and Amazon have built machine learning models that are using a
vast amount of data to analyze the user interest and recommend product accordingly.

Following are some key points which show the importance of Machine Learning:
o Rapid increment in the production of data
o Solving complex problems, which are difficult for a human
o Decision making in various sector including finance
o Finding hidden patterns and extracting useful information from data.

Classification of Machine Learning

At a broad level, machine learning can be classified into three types:
1. Supervised learning
2. Unsupervised learning
3. Reinforcement learning
 1. Supervised Learning
Supervised learning is a type of machine learning method in which we provide sample labeled data to the
machine learning system in order to train it, and on that basis, it predicts the output.
The system creates a model using labeled data to understand the datasets and learn about each data, once
the training and processing are done then we test the model by providing a sample data to check whether
it is predicting the exact output or not.
The goal of supervised learning is to map input data with the output data. The supervised learning is based
on supervision, and it is the same as when a student learns things in the supervision of the teacher. The
example of supervised learning is spam filtering.

Supervised learning can be grouped further in two categories of algorithms:

o Classification
o Regression

2. Unsupervised Learning
Unsupervised learning is a learning method in which a machine learns without any supervision.
The training is provided to the machine with the set of data that has not been labeled, classified, or
categorized, and the algorithm needs to act on that data without any supervision. The goal of unsupervised
learning is to restructure the input data into new features or a group of objects with similar patterns.
In unsupervised learning, we don't have a predetermined result. The machine tries to find useful insights
from the huge amount of data. It can be further classifieds into two categories of algorithms:
o Clustering
o Association
 3. Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning is a feedback-based learning method, in which a learning agent gets a reward for
each right action and gets a penalty for each wrong action. The agent learns automatically with these
feedbacks and improves its performance. In reinforcement learning, the agent interacts with the
environment and explores it. The goal of an agent is to get the most reward points, and hence, it improves
its performance.
The robotic dog, which automatically learns the movement of his arms, is an example of Reinforcement
learning.

Examples of Machine Learning Problems (Applications of Machine Learning)

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:

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:
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:
o Realtime location of the vehicle form Google Map app and sensors
o 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:
 o Content Filter
o Header filter
o General blacklists filter
o Rules-based filters
o 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 assistants 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 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.

Structure of Learning

Training Vs Testing dataset

In a dataset, a training set is implemented to build up a model, while a test (or validation) set is to validate
the model built. Data points in the training set are excluded from the test (validation) set. Usually, a
dataset is divided into a training set, a validation set (some people use ‘test set’ instead) in each iteration,
or divided into a training set, a validation set and a test set in each iteration.
In Machine Learning, we basically try to create a model to predict the test data. So, we use the training
data to fit the model and testing data to test it. The models generated are to predict the results unknown
which is named as the test set. As you pointed out, the dataset is divided into train and test set in order to
check accuracies, precisions by training and testing it on it.

The proportion to be divided is completely up to you and the task you face. It is not essential that 70% of
the data has to be for training and rest for testing. It completely depends on the dataset being used and
the task to be accomplished.
This said so, how would you predict the results for which you do not have the answer? (The model is
ultimately being trained to predict results for which we do not have the answer). I would like to addon
about validation dataset here.

Sets:
1. Training Set: Here, you have the complete training dataset. You can extract features and train to fit
a model and soon.
2. Validation Set: This is crucial to choose the right parameters for your estimator. We can divide the
training set into a train set and validation set. Based on the validation test results, the model can be
trained (for instance, changing parameters, classifiers). This will help us get the most optimized
model.
3. Testing Set: Here, once the model is obtained, you can predict using the model obtained on the
training set.
Key characteristics of machine learning
In order to understand the actual power of machine learning, you have to consider the characteristics of
this technology. There are lots of examples that echo the characteristics of machine learning in today’s
data-rich world. Here are seven key characteristics of machine learning for which companies should prefer
it over other technologies.

2.1 The ability to perform automated data visualization

A massive amount of data is being generated by businesses and common people on a regular basis. By
visualizing notable relationships in data, businesses can not only make better decisions but build
confidence as well. Machine learning offers a number of tools that provide rich snippets of data which can
be applied to both unstructured and structured data. With the help of user-friendly automated data
visualization platforms in machine learning, businesses can obtain a wealth of new insights in an effort to
increase productivity in their processes.

2.2 Automation at its best

One of the biggest characteristics of machine learning is its ability to automate repetitive tasks and thus,
increasing productivity. A huge number of organizations are already using machine learning-powered
paperwork and email automation.
In the financial sector, for example, a huge number of repetitive, data-heavy and predictable tasks are
needed to be performed. Because of this, this sector uses different types of machine learning solutions to a
great extent. The make accounting tasks faster, more insightful, and more accurate. Some aspects that
have been already addressed by machine learning include addressing financial queries with the help of
chatbots, making predictions, managing expenses, simplifying invoicing, and automating bank
reconciliations.

2.3 Customer engagement like never before

For any business, one of the most crucial ways to drive engagement, promote brand loyalty and establish
long-lasting customer relationships is by triggering meaningful conversations with its target customer base.
Machine learning plays a critical role in enabling businesses and brands to spark more valuable
conversations in terms of customer engagement. The technology analyzes particular phrases, words,
sentences, idioms, and content formats which resonate with certain audience members. You can think of
Pinterest which is successfully using machine learning to personalize suggestions to its users. It uses
the technology to source content in which users will be interested, based on objects which they have
pinned already.
 2.4 The ability to take efficiency to the next level when merged with IoT
Thanks to the huge hype surrounding the IoT, machine learning has experienced a great rise in popularity.
IoT is being designated as a strategically significant area by many companies. And many others have
launched pilot projects to gauge the potential of IoT in the context of business operations. But attaining
financial benefits through IoT isn’t easy. In order to achieve success, companies, which are offering IoT
consulting services and platforms, need to clearly determine the areas that will change with the
implementation of IoT strategies. Many of these businesses have failed to address it. In this scenario,
machine learning is probably the best technology that can be used to attain higher levels of efficiency. By
merging machine learning with IoT, businesses can boost the efficiency of their entire production
processes.

2.5 The ability to change the mortgage market

It’s a fact that fostering a positive credit score usually takes discipline, time, and lots of financial planning
for a lot of consumers. When it comes to the lenders, the consumer credit score is one of the biggest
measures of creditworthiness that involve a number of factors including payment history, total debt,
length of credit history etc. But wouldn’t it be great if there is a simplified and better measure? With the
help of machine learning, lenders can now obtain a more comprehensive consumer picture. They can now
predict whether the customer is a low spender or a high spender and understand his/her tipping point of
spending. Apart from mortgage lending, financial institutions are using the same techniques for other types
of consumer loans.

2.6 Accurate data analysis

Traditionally, data analysis has always been encompassing trial and error method, an approach which
becomes impossible when we are working with large and heterogeneous datasets. Machine learning
comes as the best solution to all these issues by offering effective alternatives to analyzing massive
volumes of data. By developing efficient and fast algorithms, as well as, data-driven models for processing
of data in real-time, machine learning is able to generate accurate analysis and results.

2.7 Business intelligence at its best

Machine learning characteristics, when merged with big data analytical work, can generate extreme levels
of business intelligence with the help of which several different industries are making strategic initiatives.
From retail to financial services to healthcare, and many more — machine learning has already become
one of the most effective technologies to boost business operations.