Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners_Oliver Theobald.pdf

Machine Learning For Absolute Beginners Oliver Theobald Second Edition Copyright © 2017 by Oliver Theobald All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. Contents INTRODUCTION WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING? ML CATEGORIES THE ML TOOLBOX DATA SCRUBBING SETTING UP YOUR DATA REGRESSION ANALYSIS CLUSTERING BIAS & VARIANCE ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS DECISION TREES ENSEMBLE MODELING BUILDING A MODEL IN PYTHON MODEL OPTIMIZATION FURTHER RESOURCES DOWNLOADING DATASETS FINAL WORD INTRODUCTION Machines have come a long way since the Industrial Revolution. They continue to fill factory floors and manufacturing plants, but now their capabilities extend beyond manual activities to cognitive tasks that, until recently, only humans were capable of performing. Judging song competitions, driving automobiles, and mopping the floor with professional chess players are three examples of the specific complex tasks machines are now capable of simulating. But their remarkable feats trigger fear among some observers. Part of this fear nestles on the neck of survivalist insecurities, where it provokes the deep-seated question of what if? What if intelligent machines turn on us in a struggle of the fittest? What if intelligent machines produce offspring with capabilities that humans never intended to impart to machines? What if the legend of the singularity is true? The other notable fear is the threat to job security, and if you’re a truck driver or an accountant, there is a valid reason to be worried. According to the British Broadcasting Company’s (BBC) interactive online resource Will a robot take my job?, professions such as bar worker (77%),