Arthur Samuel, is credited for coining the term, “machine learning” with his research around the game of checkers. Robert Nealey, the self-proclaimed checkers master, played the game on an IBM 7094 computer in 1962, and he lost to the computer. Compared to what can be done today, this feat seems trivial, but it’s considered a major milestone in the field of artificial intelligence.
Over the last couple of decades, the technological advances in storage and processing power have enabled some innovative products based on machine learning, such as Netflix’s recommendation engine and self-driving cars.
Machine learning is an important component of the growing field of data science. Through the use of statistical methods, algorithms are trained to make classifications or predictions, and to uncover key insights in data mining projects. These insights subsequently drive decision making within applications and businesses, ideally impacting key growth metrics. As big data continues to expand and grow, the market demand for data scientists will increase. They will be required to help identify the most relevant business questions and the data to answer them.
Machine learning algorithms are typically created using frameworks that accelerate solution development, such as TensorFlow and PyTorch.
Reinforcement machine learning is a machine learning model that is similar to supervised learning, but the algorithm isn’t trained using sample data. This model learns as it goes by using trial and error. A sequence of successful outcomes will be reinforced to develop the best recommendation or policy for a given problem.
By the early 1960s an experimental "learning machine" with punched tape memory, called Cybertron, had been developed by Raytheon Company to analyze sonar signals, electrocardiograms, and speech patterns using rudimentary reinforcement learning. It was repetitively "trained" by a human operator/teacher to recognize patterns and equipped with a "goof" button to cause it to re-evaluate incorrect decisions. A representative book on research into machine learning during the 1960s was Nilsson's book on Learning Machines, dealing mostly with machine learning for pattern classification.Interest related to pattern recognition continued into the 1970s, as described by Duda and Hart in 1973. In 1981 a report was given on using teaching strategies so that a neural network learns to recognize 40 characters (26 letters, 10 digits, and 4 special symbols) from a computer terminal.As a scientific endeavor, machine learning grew out of the quest for artificial intelligence (AI). In the early days of AI as an academic discipline, some researchers were interested in having machines learn from data. They attempted to approach the problem with various symbolic methods, as well as what were then termed "neural networks"; these were mostly perceptrons and other models that were later found to be reinventions of the generalized linear models of statistics.
The basic assumption underlying machine learning is that whatever worked in the past (i.e. strategies, algorithms, and inferences) will most likely continue to work in the future. An obvious example is "since the sun rose every morning for the last 10,000 days, it will probably rise tomorrow morning as well". A more nuanced example is "in X% of families have geographically separate species with color variants, so there is a Y% chance that undiscovered black swans exist".
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