Introduction to Machine

Learning
Rift Valley University, Shashamane Campus
Department of Computer Science
Nov, 2024
 Outline

 What is Machine Learning (ML)?

 Examples of ML applications
 Related to the course
 Major classes of ML Algorithms
 ML Vs AI
 Questions about ML

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 What is Machine Learning ?

 Machine Learning: is a field of study that gives computers the

ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. (Arthur
Samuel – 1959)

 A computer program is said to learn from experience E with

respect to some class of task T and performance measure P, if
its performance at task in T, as measured by P, improves with
experience E. (Tom Mitchell – 1998)

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 What is Machine Learning ?

 What is ML: building computational artifacts that learn over

time based on experience.
 It includes:
 The mathematics behind it
 The science behind it (systematic and logical approach,
knowledge base on demonstrable)
 The engineering behind it (the application of mathematics and
science)
 The computing behind it (using computer technology)

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 Examples of ML Application

 Some examples of tasks best solved by learning algorithms.

 Recognizing patterns:
Object in real scenes
Facial identities or facial expressions
Spoken words
 Recognizing anomalies:
Unusual sequences of credit card transactions
Unusual patterns of sensor readings in a nuclear power plant
 Prediction:
Future stock price or currency exchange rates
Which movies will a person like?
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 Examples of ML Application

 Some application of ML in Google:

 Page ranking (RankBrain)
 Spam identification in email
 Speech recognition (language recognition)
 Software in Cars (Autonomous and self driving cars)
 Recommender system
 Google voice search
 Gmail inbox’s smart replay
 Google photos
 Google Cloud Vision API
 Virtual reality etc…
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 ML related to this Course

 The course can be:

 More of theoretical :
 More of practical:
 Balancing the theory and the application

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 ML related to this Course

 Some prerequisite :
 Programming (python, matlab, R etc…)
 Probability and Statistics;
 Mathematics (Linear Algebra, Matrix, Vector, differential
calculus, and integral calculus)
 Curiosity of working with data etc…

 ML – it is all about learning from examples (data).

 We take features and produced labels.

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes:

 Math skills
 Programming skills
 Data Engineering skills
 Machine learning algorithms
 Machine learning frameworks

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes: Math skills

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes: Programming skills

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes: Data Engineering skills

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes: ML algorithms

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 Learning Path

 Generally, the learning path includes: ML Framework

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 Major Classes of ML
Algorithms

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 Supervised Learning

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 Supervised Learning

 Supervised learning: (function approximation) [labels data

well]

Input 1 2 3 4 5 6 9
Output 1 4 9 16 25 36 ?

output <- input2

 Learn to predict an output when given an input vector.

 E.g.: Features: age, gander, smoking, drinking etc…
 Labels : having the disease , does not have the disease
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 Supervised Learning

 Supervised Learning:
 Regression Problem: numerical / continuous value.
 Given some data, you assume that those values come from some
sort of function and try to find out what the function is.
 It is a problem of function approximation or interpolation.

 Classification Problem: nominal / discrete value.

 Grouping the data into predetermined classes.

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 Supervised Learning

 Supervised learning: making predictions using data.

 Example : is a given email “spam” or “ham”.
 There is an outcome; we are trying to predict.
 Classification

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 Unsupervised Learning

 Unsupervised learning :
 Unsupervised (concise description) [cluster scores well]
 The aim of unsupervised learning is to find clusters of
similar inputs in the data without being explicitly told that some
data points belong to one class and the other in other classes.

 The algorithm has to discover this similarity by itself.

 Discover a good internal representation of the input.

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 Unsupervised Learning

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 Unsupervised Learning

 Unsupervised learning: extracting structure from data.

 Example: segment grocery store shopper into clusters that exhibit
similar behaviors.
 There is no “right answer”
 Clustering

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 Reinforcement Learning

 Reinforcement learning :
 Reinforcement (stimulus/state, action, reward) [behavior scores
well] – reward maximization.

 The algorithm searches over the state space of possible inputs and
outputs in order to maximize a reward.
 Learn to select an action to maximize payoff.

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 Machine Learning Vs AI

 Machine learning : is more of induction (from specific to

generalization)
 Abebe is mortal, Almaz is mortal
 Kebede is mortal,
 Then, all humans are mortal

 Artificial Intelligence: more of deduction (from general to

specific – reasoning )
 A implies B
 Having “A”, you can infer “B”

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 Machine Learning Vs AI

 Machine learning can be:

 Unsupervised (description) -> summaries -> Supervised (function
approximation) -> Labels
 Data is the key in ML:

 The difference b/n solving a problem as AI or ML person is:

 As a AI person: the algorithm is central
 As a ML person: the data is central (get the priority)

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 Machine Learning Application

 Machine learning can be applied:

 What are the serious of steps I need to do in order to solve some
problem?
 If I tried to describe this problem in a particular way, is it
solvable?

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 Machine Learning

 What is Machine Learning?

 Machine learning is the semi-automated extraction of knowledge
from data?
Knowledge from data: Starts with a question that might be
answerable using data.
Automated extraction: A computer provides the insight.
Semi-automated: Requires many smart decisions by a human.

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 Machine Learning

 How does ML “work”?

 High-level steps of supervised learning:
 First, train a machine learning model using labeled data.
“Labeled data” has been labeled with the outcome.
“ML model” learns the relationship b/n the attributes of the data and
its outcome.

 Then, make predictions on new data for which the label is

unknown.
Example: segment grocery store shopper into clusters that exhibit
similar behaviors.

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 Machine Learning

 Questions about ML?

 How do I choose which attributes of my data to include in the
model?
 How do I choose which model to use?
 How do I optimize the model for best performance?
 How do I ensure that I’m building a model that will generalize to
unseen data?
 Can I estimate how well my model is likely to perform on unseen
data?

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