Machine Learning with Small Data

Machine learning and big data are broadly believed to be synonymous. The story goes that large amounts of training data are needed for algorithms to discern signal from noise. As a result, machine learning techniques have been most used by web companies with troves of user data. For Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple (or the "Fearsome Five" as Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times has dubbed them), obtaining large amounts of user data is no issue. Data usage policies have become increasingly broad, allowing these companies to make use of everything from our keystrokes to our personal locations as we use company products.