Introduction of Supervised Machine Learning

Kanchana Kariyawasam
LinkIT
Published in
3 min readJan 6, 2024
Image by Daniele Caldarini

Supervised machine learning is a keystone in the fields of artificial intelligence and data science. It is the key that allows data to offer insights, enabling computers to learn and predict or decide depending on input data. So let’s see, what is supervised machine learning, and why is it so important?

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Understanding of Supervised Learning 🧐

Within the field of machine learning, supervised learning involves teaching algorithms with labeled training data. It provides a clear relationship between features, the input variable, and the target, the output variable.

Finding the optimal mapping function to link the input and output is the algorithm’s main goal. The model learns by being given a labeled dataset, which enables it to recognize patterns and correlations and correctly predict or classify new data.

What Labeled Data Is Used For? 🤔

Labeled data is the base of supervised learning. In the training set, each point of data has associated output labels and input features. For instance, in a spam email detection system, the algorithm learns from a dataset where each email is labelled as spam or not spam, enabling it to distinguish between the two when exposed to new, unseen emails.

Image by Lily Chen

Supervised Learning Types 👀

Supervised learning may be roughly classified into two types:

  • Regression analysis is the process of forecasting continuous variables. For example, linear regression projects a numerical value, such as home pricing, depending on some characteristics, including size, location, and features.
  • Classification makes distinct predictions. It gives input classes or categories. A good example is image classification, in which a model recognizes various items in pictures.

As usual, some steps need to be followed to create a model by using supervised learning algorithms.

  1. Data Collection: Gathering a comprehensive dataset with labeled instances.
  2. Data Preprocessing: Cleaning, transforming, and preparing the data for model training.
  3. Model Selection: Choosing an appropriate algorithm based on the problem type and dataset.
  4. Training the Model: Feeding the labelled data into the selected model for it to learn patterns and relationships.
  5. Evaluation: Assessing the model’s performance using metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, etc.
  6. Prediction/Deployment: Deploying the trained model to make predictions on new, unseen data.

Even though supervised learning has shown to be effective, there are still issues with it, such as overfitting, which occurs when a model works incredibly well on training data but not at all on new data. Regularization and cross-validation are two strategies that help minimize this problem.

Conclusion 🥳

In conclusion, supervised machine learning changes our approach to problem-solving and decision-making by enabling computers to learn and make predictions. It does this by depending on labeled data and a unique input-output connection.

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References ✔

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Kanchana Kariyawasam
LinkIT
Writer for

Former Software Engineer Intern at Geveo-Australasia || Undergraduate of Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa.