Classification of Machine Learning-Unsupervised Learning

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Machine learning has become a popular method for enhancing the user experience and for

testing system for assuring quality. This is the second article on classification of machine

learning about unsupervised learning. Unsupervised learning means using Artificial

Intelligence (AI) algorithms for identifying patterns within data consisting of data points

which have not been classified or labelled before. The algorithms are utilized for labelling,

classifying or grouping these data points without any sort of external guidance to perform

the task. In unsupervised learning, the system identifies patterns existing in data sets on its

own.
The Artificial Intelligence System is provided with uncategorized and unlabelled data on

which algorithms of system function without any training. The output depends on the

coded algorithms. It is a common way to test the capability of that system. Unsupervised

learning algorithms are able to perform more complicated tasks; however, it is

unpredictable. The common approaches of conducting unsupervised learning in an

effective way are clustering, association and dimensionality reduction. Clustering is a

technique of data mining that identifies patterns or structures in unlabelled raw data

depending on their similarities and differences. These clustering algorithms can be

classified into specifically exclusive, hierarchical, overlapping and probabilistic.

Association is method based on rule for identifying relation between variables in a data

set. These strategies are utilized frequently for market-based analysis thus letting the

organizations to comprehend the association between various products in a better way.

The algorithms utilized for generating association rules include, Apriori, FP-Growth and

Eclat with Apriori being widely used. Dimensionality reduction is used when the data set

consists of higher number of dimensions or features. It helps in reducing the input to a

manageable size and preserves the integrity of data set. The methods used for

dimensionality reduction include, singular value decomposition, principal component

analysis and encoders.

The unsupervised learning helps in anomaly detection by identifying unusual data points.

This is used to investigate fraudulent transactions, human error or faulty hardware pieces.

Association mining can identify items that reoccur in data set. The pre-processing of data

is carried out by latent variable models which reduce the features or decompose data into

various components. Unsupervised learning is used by Google News for categorizing

articles on the same story from different outlets of online news. It also provides important
features like image detection, segmentation to medical imaging devices which are used in

pathology and radiology for quick and accurate diagnosis of patients.

The unsupervised learning allows machine to identify problems which may seem

impossible for humans. This can be used by data scientists as unsupervised learning helps

in understanding raw data. It resembles human intelligence in a way as the model learns

gradually and then computes the result. However, unsupervised learning can not provide

precise information about data classification as input data is not known. This leads to less

accuracy in results as the machine has to process the data on its own.

The unsupervised learning can be used when data on desired outcomes is not available.

The main purpose of unsupervised learning is identifying hidden patterns and data in a

data. It can help in detecting anomalies like fraudulent transactions. It is quite useful;

however, the largest drawback is that it cannot provide accurate information about data

classification as machine functions on its own.

References

Gentleman, R., & Carey, V. J. (2008). Unsupervised machine learning. In Bioconductor

case studies (pp. 137-157). Springer, New York, NY.

https://www.guru99.com/unsupervised-machine-learning.html

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/unsupervised-learning

https://www.datarobot.com/wiki/unsupervised-machine-learning/

https://machinelearningmastery.com/supervised-and-unsupervised-machine-learning-

algorithms/

https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/definition/unsupervised-learning

https://www.upgrad.com/blog/how-does-unsupervised-machine-learning-work/

https://techvidvan.com/tutorials/unsupervised-learning/