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Machine Learning Types

Supervised Learning

model is trained on a labeled dataset (i.e., the target or outcome variable is known)

Examples:

  • Image classification (cat vs dog)
  • Spam detection

Unsupervised Learning

The model learns from unlabeled data (it finds patterns on its own)

Examples:

  • Clustering (grouping similar items together)
  • Anomaly detection (identifying unusual in data)
  • Dimensionality reduction (reducing number of features(variables) while keeping the important information)

Self-Supervised Learning (SSL)

Models to train themselves on unlabeled data, creates its own labels automatically from the data itself.

Explanation:

  • Instead of humans labeling data (like “this is a cat”), the model takes part of the data, hides it, and learns to predict the missing part.

Reinforcement Learning

Model learns by trial and error using rewards and penalties.

Examples:

  • Robotics (robot learns to navigate environment)
  • Game playing agents (Chess, Atari games)

Semi-Supervised Learning

combination between supervised and unsupervised learning.

Example:

Imagine you have:

  • 500 labeled images (you know the correct category)
  • 50,000 unlabeled images (no labels)

A semi-supervised model:

  • Learns structure from all 50,000 images.
  • Uses the 500 labeled examples to fine-tune the decision boundaries.

Result:

  • You get performance close to a fully supervised model without labeling everything.

Why it matters:

  • Labeling data is expensive and time-consuming. Semi-supervised learning leverages the alot of unlabeled data to improve model performance with minimal labeled data.

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