Summary

In this chapter, we learned how to use decision trees for prediction. Using ensemble learning techniques, we created complex reinforcement learning models to predict the class of an arbitrary data point.

Decision trees proved to be very accurate on the surface, but they were prone to overfitting the model. Random forests and extremely randomized trees reduce overfitting by introducing some random elements and a voting algorithm, where the majority wins.

Beyond decision trees, random forests, and extremely randomized trees, we also learned about new methods for evaluating the utility of a model. After using the well-known accuracy score, we started using the precision, recall, and F1 score metrics to evaluate how well our classifier works. All of these values were derived from the confusion matrix.

In the next chapter, we will describe the clustering problem and compare and contrast two clustering algorithms.