What is Machine Learning? It is a common question that I get asked a lot. I wanted to find a simple, intuitive definition. After doing a few Google searches, I settled on this one from Arthur Samuel.
from Arthur Samuel (in 1959)
“[Machine Learning is the] field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed.”
It is a field of study. I like that. I picked this after Googling and finding over 100 descriptions. Here is a shorter curated list of results from this Google Search. From this list, you may find that Machine Learning is:
- A technique
- A field of study
- An application
- A Method
- A type of AI
- A sub-field of AI
- A general term
- A cure-all for all human problems (just kidding)
- A data based application generator
- A statistical method of learning from data
- A mapping function of inputs to outputs
So, what do you think is Machine Learning?