Introduction to unsupervised learning algorithms
Consider a scenario where a child is given a bag full of beads of different sizes, colors, shapes, and made of various materials. We just leave to the child do whatever they want with the whole bag of beads.
There are various things the child could do, based on their interests:
- Separate the beads into categories based on size
- Separate the beads into categories based on shape
- Separate the beads into categories based on a combination of color and shape
- Separate the beads into categories based on a combination of material, color, and shape
The possibilities are endless. However, the child without any prior teaching is able to go through the beads and uncover patterns of which it doesn't need any any prior knowledge at all. They are discovering the patterns purely on the basis of going through the beads at hand, that is, the data at hand. We just got introduced to unsupervised machine learning!
We will relate the preceding activity to the key steps...
