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Category
Topics in machine learning
Summary
Machine learning (ML) is an umbrella term for solving problems for which development of algorithms by human programmers would be cost-prohibitive, and instead the problems are solved by helping machines 'discover' their 'own' algorithms, without needing to be explicitly told what to do by any human-developed algorithms. Recently, generative artificial neural networks have been able to surpass results of many previous approaches. Machine learning approaches have been applied to large language models, computer vision, speech recognition, email filtering, agriculture and medicine, where it is too costly to develop algorithms to perform the needed tasks.
The mathematical foundations of ML are provided by mathematical optimization (mathematical programming) methods. Data mining is a related (parallel) field of study, focusing on exploratory data analysis through unsupervised learning.
ML is known in its application across business problems under the name predictive analytics. Although not all machine learning is statistically-based, computational statistics is an important source of the field's methods.
Timeline of machine learning
The term machine learning was coined in 1959 by Arthur Samuel, an IBM employee and pioneer in the field of computer gaming and artificial intelligence. The synonym self-teaching computers was also used in this time period.
By the early 1960s an experimental "learning machine" with punched tape memory, called Cybertron, had been developed by Raytheon Company to analyze sonar signals, electrocardiograms, and speech patterns using rudimentary reinforcement learning. It was repetitively "trained" by a human operator/teacher to recognize patterns and equipped with a "goof" button to cause it to re-evaluate incorrect decisions. A representative book on research into machine learning during the 1960s was Nilsson's book on Learning Machines, dealing mostly with machine learning for pattern classification. Interest related to pattern recognition continued into the 1970s, as described by Duda and Hart in 1973.
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