Types of Machine Learning

Machine learning encompasses a wide range of algorithms. A basic goal is to learn about a dataset to allow the algorithm to make predictions.

Some popular methods (see the Wikipedia page for nice descriptions) include:

• artificial neural networks : these mimic neurons and their connections in the brain and are trained on data to set weights that then allow us to make predictions.

• decision trees : here the underlying data structure is a decision tree that uses branching to classify data.

• random forest regression : this is related to decision trees but uses multiple trees and averaging to make predictions.

Note

We’ll focus on artificial neural networks.