Machine Learning Basics with the K-Nearest Neighbors Algorithm

The k-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm is a simple, easy-to-implement supervised machine learning algorithm that can be used to solve both classification and regression problems. A supervised machine learning algorithm (as opposed to an unsupervised machine learning algorithm) is one that relies on labeled input data to learn a function that produces an appropriate output when given new unlabeled data. Imagine a computer is a child, we are its supervisor (e.g. We will show the child several different pictures, some of which are pigs and the rest could be pictures of anything (cats, dogs, etc). When we see a pig, we shout "pig!"