Machine Learning Basics

Before we start this article on machine learning basics, let us take an example to understand the impact of machine learning in the world. We can safely assume that machine learning has been a dominant force in today's world and has accelerated our progress in all fields. No matter which industry you look at, machine learning has dramatically altered it. Let's take an example from the world of trading. Man Group's AHL Dimension programme is a $5.1 billion dollar hedge fund which is partially managed by AI. After it started off, by the year 2015, its machine learning algorithms were contributing more than half of the profits of the fund even though the assets under its management were far less. Machine learning has become a hot topic today, with professionals all over the world signing up for ML or AI courses for fear of being left behind. But exactly what is machine learning? It will be clear to you when you have reached the end of this article. Machine Learning, as the name suggests, provides machines with the ability to learn autonomously based on experiences, observations and analysing patterns within a given data set without explicitly programming. When we write a program or a code for some specific purpose, we are actually writing a definite set of instructions which the machine will follow. Whereas in machine learning, we input a data set through which the machine will learn by identifying and analysing the patterns in the data set and learn to take decisions autonomously based on its observations and learnings from the dataset.