Chapter 2 Introduction to Machine Learning

In order to conduct our own machine learning tasks, we will need to familiarise ourselves with some new terminology - please take a look over the details and definitions in the following sections.

Note: Some of the following details may be slightly simplified.

Before we proceed, we should make a clear distinction between machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), as these can often be conflated.

  • Machine learning is a mechanical, inductive process, and the ‘learning’ that takes place is strictly via the parameters specified by the human(s)4 writing the code - the machine itself does not exercise any independent thought or ‘intelligence’, nor does it question what it is learning, or why.

  • Artificial Intelligence, in contrast, can act (within the parameters defined during its creation) independently once created.

MLRobot5


  1. or possibly AI↩︎

  2. “Artificial Intelligence & AI & Machine Learning” by mikemacmarketing is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ↩︎