Summary

Machine learning originated at the intersection of statistics, database science, and computer science. It is a powerful tool, capable of finding actionable insight in large quantities of data. Still, caution must be used in order to avoid common abuses of machine learning in the real world.

In conceptual terms, learning involves the abstraction of data into a structured representation, and the generalization of this structure into action. In more practical terms, a machine learner uses data containing examples and features of the concept to be learned, and summarizes this data in the form of a model, which is then used for predictive or descriptive purposes. These can be further divided into specific tasks including classification, numeric ...

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