Supervised Learning
Definition
Supervised learning is a type of machine learning where the model is trained on a labeled dataset. It means that the input data used for training also includes the correct output or result.
Explain Like I'm 5
Imagine you are learning to recognize different shapes. Your teacher shows you a circle and says "This is a circle." Then she shows you a square and says, "This is a square." This way, by telling you what each shape is, or giving you the 'label', she's teaching you in a supervised way. Supervised learning in machines works pretty much like this!
Visualization
Digging Deeper
In supervised learning, we have an algorithm that learns from input data and its corresponding output. The goal of the model is to learn a mapping function from inputs to outputs. The learning process continues until the model achieves an acceptable level of performance. There are two types of supervised learning: regression (predicting continuous values) and classification (predicting discrete values). For example, predicting house prices based on various features (like size, location) would be a regression problem, while classifying emails into spam or not spam would be a classification problem.
Applications
- Spam detection: Supervised learning can be used to classify emails as spam or not spam based on features like the sender's email address, subject line words, body text etc.
- Credit card fraud detection: By analyzing previous transactions labeled as fraudulent or legitimate, supervised machine learning algorithms can predict whether future transactions are likely to be fraudulent.
- Image recognition: Supervised machine learning models can be trained to recognize and categorize images based on labeled training data.
- Medical diagnosis: Supervised learning can be used to predict the presence of a disease based on patient symptoms and medical history.
- Speech recognition: Supervised learning is used in voice assistants like Siri or Alexa to recognize and interpret spoken language.
Learn More
- Wikipedia: Supervised Learning
- Beginner-friendly video: Supervised Learning Explained
- In-depth technical resource: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher M. Bishop