The learning problem - Outline

• Example of machine learning
• Components of Learning
• A simple model
• Types of learning
• Puzzle

Example: Predicting how a viewer will rate a movie

• 10% improvement = 1 million dollar prize, 这是机器学习的商业价值, 一点小小的调优, 可以更合理的分配资源, 提升效率, 得到巨大经济利益.
• The essence of machine learning:
  • A pattern exists. 机器学习如果要成立, 模式/规律必须存在, 完全随机无学习可言
  • We cannot pin it down mathematically. 人类无法找到数学规律, 需要借助计算机强大的计算能力, 和模式识别能力, 来帮助人类找到模型.
  • We have data on it. 机器学习其实是从数据中学习, 或者转化成数字, 进行处理.

Movie rating - a solution

• viewer: like movies? / like action? / prefers blockbusters?… likes Tom Cruise?
• movie: comedy content / action content / blockbusters? … Tom Cruise in it?
• 结合 viewer 和 movie 的特征, 建立学习算法, 得到评价分数

Components of learning

• Formalization:
  • Input: X (customer application)
  • Output: y (good/bad customer?)
  • Target function: f: X -> y (ideal credit approval formula)
  • Data: $(x_1, y_1), (x_2, y_2), … , (x_n, y_n)$ (historical records)
  • Hypothesis: g: X -> y (formula to be used)
• Solution components
• The 2 solution components of the learning problem:
  • The Hypothesis Set
  • The Learning Algorithm
• Together, they are referred to as the learning model.

A simple hypothesis set - the ‘perceptron’

• For input $X = (x_1, … , x_d)$ ‘attributes of a customer’
  • Approve credit if $\sum_{i=1}^{d}w_ix_i$ > threshold,
  • Deny credit if $\sum_{i=1}^{d}w_ix_i$ < threshold.
• This linear formula $h \in H$ can be written as
  • h(x) = sign(($\sum_{i=1}^{d}w_ix_i$) - threshold)

Types of learning

Basic premise of learning

“using a set of observations to uncover an underlying process”

broad premise => many variations

• Supervised Learning 有监督学习, 有先验知识
• Unsupervised Learning 无监督学习, 聚类..
• Reinforcement Learning 增强学习, 玩游戏, 延迟反馈

Changelog

• 2018-02-26 创建