62 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
# What are the broad categories of classifiers?
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### A (broad) categorization could be "discriminative" vs. "generative" classifiers:
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Discriminative algorithms:
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- a direct mapping of x -> y
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- intuition: "Distinguishing between people who are speaking different languages without actually learning the language"
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- e.g., Logistic regression, SVMs, Neural networks, ...
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Generative algorithms:
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- model how the data was generated (joint probability distributions p(x, y))
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- e.g., naive Bayes, Bayesian belief networks, Restricted Boltzmann machines
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### Or, we could categorize classifiers as "lazy" vs. "eager" learners:
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Lazy learners:
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- don't "learn" a decision rule (or function)
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- no learning step involved but require to keep training data around
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- e.g., K-nearest neighbor classifiers
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### A third possibility could be "parametric" vs. "non-parametric"
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(in context of machine learning; the field of statistics interprets use terms a little bit differently.)
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non-parametric:
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- representations grow with the training data size
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- e.g., Decision trees, K-nearest neighbors
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parametric:
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- representations are "fixed"
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- e.g., most linear classifiers like logistic regression etc.
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### Pedro Domingo's 5 Tribes of Machine Learning
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In his new book ([The Master Algorithm](http://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Machine/dp/0465065708/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447045562&sr=8-1&keywords=pedro+domingos)), Pedro Domingo's mentioned the 5 tribes of machine learning, which is another nice categorization. Summarizing from the book (pp. 51-53)
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**Symbolists**
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- manipulating symbols (like mathematicians replace expressions by expressions), or in other words, using pre-existing knowledge to fill in the missing pieces
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- "master algorithm:" inverse deduction
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**Connectionists**
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- reverse-engineering a biological brain, i.e., strengthening the connections between neurons
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- "master algorithm:" backpropagation
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**Evolutionaries**
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- whereas connectionism is about fine-tuning the brain, evolution is about creating the brain
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- "master algorithm:" genetic programming
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**Bayesians**
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- based on probabilistic inference, i.e., incorporating a priori knowledge: certain outcomes are more likely
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- "master algorithm:" Bayes' theorem and its derivatives
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**Analogizers**
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- generalizing from similarity, i.e., recognizing similarities or in other words: remember experiences (training data) and how to combine them to make new predictions
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- "master algorithm:" support vector machine
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