Beginner · Fundamentals

Machine Learning

Visual diagram · (in preparation) · Math · (in preparation) · Worked example · 3 difficulty levels.

TL;DR. A field of AI where systems learn patterns from data instead of following hard-coded rules.

Technical Definition

A field of AI where systems learn patterns from data instead of following hard-coded rules.

How it works

ML algorithms improve their performance on a task as they see more data. The three main paradigms are supervised learning (learn from labeled examples), unsupervised learning (find structure in unlabeled data), and reinforcement learning (learn by trial and reward). ML powers recommendations, fraud detection, translation, medical imaging, and the modern wave of generative AI.

Related Concepts

• Deep Learning — A subset of machine learning using neural networks with many layers to learn hierarchical representations from large datasets.
• Model — A mathematical representation learned from data that maps inputs to outputs.
• Supervised Learning — Learning from input–output pairs where each training example carries a correct label.