Friday 17 March 2017

Steps required for selecting the right machine learning algorithm.

How to choose the right algorithm

1) First you need to consider your goal. What are you trying to get out of this? What data you have or can you collect.

2) If  you’re  trying  to  predict  or  forecast  a  target  value,  then  you  need  to  look  into supervised learning.

3) If not, then unsupervised learning is the place you want to be.

4) If you’ve chosen supervised learning, what’s your target value? Is it a discrete value like Yes/No, 1/2/3, A/B/C, or Red/Yellow/Black?  If so, then you want to look into classification. If the target value can take on a number of values, say any value from 0.00 to 100.00, or -999 to 999, or +infinty to -infinty, then you need to look into regression.

5) If you’re not trying to predict a target value, then you need to look into unsupervised  learning.  Are  you  trying  to  fit  your  data  into  some  discrete  groups?  If  so  and that’s all you need, you should look into clustering.

6) Do you need to have some numerical estimate of how strong the fit is into each group? If you answer yes, then you probably should look into a density estimation algorithm.

  The  rules  I’ve  given  here  should  point  you  in  the  right  direction  but  are  not unbreakable laws. You should spend some time getting to know your data, and the more you know about  it,  the  better  you’ll  be  able  to  build  a  successful  application. 

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