Dimensionality Reduction using an Autoencoder in Python

Dimensionality is the number of input variables or features for a dataset and dimensionality reduction is the process through which we reduce the number of input variables in a dataset. A lot of input features makes predictive modeling a more challenging task. When dealing with high dimensional data, it is often useful to reduce the dimensionality by projecting the data to a lower dimensional subspace which captures the "essence" of the data. This is called dimensionality reduction. "dimensionality reduction yields a more compact, more easily interpretable representation of the target concept, focusing the user's attention on the most relevant variables."